


Vigilance III: Deliverance

by nightinngales



Series: Vigilance [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dawnguard DLC, F/F, Mod References, Modded Skyrim, Slow Burn, strap yourselves in here we go, we're here at last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 117,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22031317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinngales/pseuds/nightinngales
Summary: Following the events of the second book, Eres’ next assignment involves vampire activity within the dungeons of Windhelm - just as reports of vampire attacks all over Skyrim are growing in frequency. Believing the two incidents may be connected, Eres travels south to join the Dawnguard’s effort, and uncovers a bit more than she bargained for.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn & Serana, Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana
Series: Vigilance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585780
Comments: 32
Kudos: 151





	1. Empty Cells

**Author's Note:**

> At long last we're here. This is where the acts start to get a bit longer as we've gotten the foundation out of the way. I hope you guys enjoy their dynamic as much as I enjoyed writing it. The first chapter of this does start off with a bit of the Vigilant mod to tie it in to Dawnguard.

ACT III  
CHAPTER I  
“EMPTY CELLS"

In the months following the massacre of the Vigilants at the Temple of Stendarr, and all that followed, Eres and Gwyneth spent their time working to keep the Vigilants within Skyrim as functional as possible.

News travelled fast in such a small province, and it was not long until rumors of the Vigilants’ destruction reached the furthest corners of Skyrim. But, with winter in full swing, the Temple did not receive so many visitors. Only a few Vigilants had braved the dangerous weathers to join them at the Temple, however briefly.

With their forces so crippled, every Vigilant in Skyrim would be needed in the field, taking the fight to the Daedra rather than holing up in a Temple, wishing for the best.

As much as Eres might have enjoyed the company – if only to combat the feeling of loneliness and empty rooms – it was best that the remaining Vigilants were doing what they could to keep the world safe.

Gwyneth became much as Johanna was to Fellburg, incredibly good with managing the mundane details of running the Temple while Eres focused on that which needed her attention most – requests from Jarls, the paranoid ramblings of priests, deciphering which rumors were worth investigating, and which were merely wives’ tales.

And, though Eres hated to think of it – the loss of so many Vigilants meant that their budget did have enough wiggle room for her to send a sizable salary back to Fellburg. The Keeper was paid well, it seemed.

Fellburg returned with news that a carpenter had made his home near the main road in Fellburg – _road_. Fellburg had _roads_ , now. Plural. Only two – but still, that was better than none. She doubted they were more than packed dirt, but they were still _roads_.

Between the carpenter and the smith, they had managed to build a forge and smelter, and Yosef had hired on a few hands from nearby Rorikstead and traveling laborers to get the old iron mine back open again. The crops they’d planted before Eres left had, sadly, not made it through winter – they’d frozen over in the time that Fellburg had been sieged, however brief a time it had been, and had never recovered.

But Yosef had plans, and he seemed optimistic for Fellburg’s future, according to Johanna. Johanna also mentioned that they’d hired a few more guards, and had even managed to build guard posts near the Keep entrance, and on the roads approaching Fellburg. It was much safer there now, like a proper Keep.

Eres had wished she could see it, then.

She wishes even more so, now.

“That guard from Windhelm demanded to speak with you.”

Eres peers down out of the window on the second floor, at the stoic guard who remains posted outside the front doors of the Temple, hands folded behind his back.

“He could just come inside. Like a normal person.”

Gwyneth merely shrugs. “He doesn’t seem willing to. He said he would wait for you there. He hasn’t moved an inch in hours.”

“Points for dedication,” Eres mutters. “Do you know what he wants?”

“He wouldn’t tell me,” Gwyneth shrugs again. “Said it was only for _The Keeper_ ’s ears. I haven’t heard anything strange from Windhelm, lately, though… Whatever the issue might be, they’ve been keeping a tight lid on it.”

Eres hums in thought. She’s not particularly thrilled for a messenger from Windhelm, of all places. She’s always hated that city, and she hates Ulfric even more. Racist bastard.

But. She can’t allow her personal grievances to interfere with her work.

She sighs. “Fine. I’ll go see him.” She meets Gwyneth’s eyes and makes a show of rolling her eyes about it. Gwyneth’s soft laughter follows her down the stairs.

Well, at least someone is getting something out of this.

She grabs her cloak and shrugs it over her shoulders before she opens the front doors to meet him. Though winter is coming to an end in most parts of Skyrim – such as Fellburg, which has probably thawed and is _beautiful_ in early Spring, she bets – Dawnstar is always cold.

“I’m told you requested me,” Eres says to him, when he stands to attention. She clasps her hands in front of her waist, her feet shoulder-width apart, a pose that looks gracious and almost regal without becoming too overbearing.

“I am Hjerik,” the guard states. “From Windhelm.”

“I gathered,” she says dryly, looking pointedly at his uniform – that of a Windhelm guard’s. “What can I do for you?”

“The Steward Jorleif has requested the aid of the Vigilants,” Hjerik says stiffly. “You, specifically.”

She raises a brow. “ _Specifically_ me?”

“He asked for the Keeper,” Hjerik continues. “No one else. To meet him in the Palace.”

“And did he say what for?”

Hjerik shakes his head. “That is only for you to know. I was not informed of the details, only that it is urgent. We have prepared a horse for you.” And he gestures behind him and to his left – where, sure enough, two horses wait somewhat impatiently. “We must make haste to Windhelm at once.”

“I have duties here, you know. I can’t just leave because you asked me to.”

“This is not a request,” Hjerik states. “It is an order.”

Both of her brows rise high, and she rocks back on her heels to regard him coolly. “An _order_?”

“The Vigilants here answer to Ulfric, el—Keeper,” the guard shifts on his feet, but whether he is simply impatient or uncomfortable, Eres cannot tell. “Jorleif is Ulfric’s steward. He has asked for your presence, and therefore he shall have it.”

“And if I refuse?”

Hjerik’s face twists into a grimace. “I would prefer that you did not.”

Strangely, despite her doubt of him for being Ulfric’s man, she thinks that he means it. He does not look as though he wants to force her to come, but that he knows he must if she doesn’t come willingly.

“…Fine,” she sighs. “I have to make arrangements first, but I’ll meet you out here in a bit.”

Hjerik looks relieved, and nods. His form relaxes.

Eres turns to reenter the Temple, shaking her head. She _hates_ Ulfric. Just because he had managed to gain Dawnstar’s allegiance, it didn’t mean he had hers – or the Vigilants’ at large. Dawnstar and The Pale might answer to him, but _she_ certainly doesn’t.

But the last thing she needs is some army showing up on her doorstep because she pissed off the Jarl.

She informs Gwyneth of where she will be headed, grabs a few necessities – as well as her armor and weapons – and meets the guard back in the courtyard to follow him to Windhelm.

It looks as though her few months of relative peace as the Keeper of the Vigil have come to an abrupt end.

When Eres arrives in Windhelm, the first thing she sees is couple of Nordic men harassing a Dunmer woman. She is, sadly, not at all surprised.

“You eat all our food, pollute our city with your stink, and you refuse to help the Stormcloaks!”

“We haven’t helped the Stormcloaks because it’s not our fight…”

The confrontation fades into the background as Eres continues past into the Candlehearth Hall. The Dunmer woman looks like she can handle herself against a couple idiot drunkards. And, at least for the time being, she is acting in the capacity of a Vigilant. She is supposed to be neutral – not off punching drunk racists in the street, as much as she’d like to.

She pushes open the door to the inn, and is immediately greeted by the innkeeper behind the bar.

“Come in, have a seat, get the cold out—” The woman looks at her as Eres pulls down her hood. “Oh, it’s you again.” Then she frowns. “There’s not any Daedra here again, is there?”

“Not as far as I know,” Eres replies, and the woman relaxes. Well. There’s no telling what that Jorleif wants her for, but it’s probably best not to cause a panic. “Just need a room for the night.”

“Sure enough, it’ll be twenty septims for the night. Back left.” Eres raises a brow. “We’ve cleaned it since you were here last. Doesn’t even smell like sulfur anymore.” And she gives Eres an almost cheeky smile as she hands her the key.

Eres did worry that perhaps only the Nord woman could not smell it, but when she opens the door, surely enough, she does not smell sulfur, or brimstone. Looking around the room, there is no indication of any sort that she had once killed a Daedra in here.

With Altano.

Eres shuts the door behind her, and suddenly feels very, very tired.

She’s tried her best not to think of Altano and everything else that had happened for the past few months, now. Any time she remembers it, she recalls how many times she had felt uneasy around him, and digs herself into a hole wondering if she might have been able to stop him sooner if she hadn’t been so careless.

If she’d only paid attention, maybe she would have seen it coming long before it came to a head. Maybe she would have been able to save those that Altano slaughtered at the Temple.

It does ache within her, to be here again, in this place, where she had once been ignorant of Altano’s machinations, and complicit in his plans. It aches more to be here again as an acting Vigilant, and not just a Keeper of the Temple, where she might encounter things – evils – that she had not seen in some time.

Of course, there were always Daedra, witches, conjurers, necromancers – all sorts of sordid affairs took place in Skyrim all the time. But the patrolling Vigilants handled most of those incidents, and she had been busy enough bringing order back to the Temple that she had been able to avoid any direct confrontation herself.

Now, that was no longer the case.

She was back in Windhelm, back in that room, and in the morning she would see Jorleif, and be handed a new assignment. She could see no other reason why the steward would call her here.

There is something going on in Windhelm, and it would be her job to figure out just what that was.

In the morning, she makes her way to the Palace amid the brisk gusts of wind of early morning whipping through the narrow streets of Windhelm. What she wouldn’t do to be back in Fellburg with its spring thaw, with the vibrant forests and plains around it. She would even welcome the great forests of Whiterun Hold or Falkreath compared to the drab, dreary mess that is Ulfric’s home city. It is no wonder everyone here is so miserable.

When she enters, she can hear distant conversation rumbling from behind the walls. It seems that Ulfric and one of his men are discussing their plans, and not very subtly. At least not to the ears of an Elf.

Jorleif, she assumes, stands at attention beside the stone-crafted throne until he sees her and her green robes, and then he is moving briskly towards her, meeting her halfway.

“Finally!” He calls as he approaches. His hands wring together nervously.

Not a good sign.

“I apologize for the delay,” Eres says, rehearsed. “We arrived in the middle of the night. I am Eres, the Keeper of the Vigil.”

“Yes, yes,” Jorleif nods hurriedly. “I am Jorleif, the steward here in Windhelm.” He reaches for her elbow, and pulls her after him as he walks purposefully for a large oaken door on the right side of the large throne room.

They stop outside it, and Jorleif makes no move to enter.

“What is it that you require the Vigilants’ aid for?” Eres asks. “That cannot be tasked to someone beneath me?”

“Discretion in this matter is paramount,” Jorleif answers. “And Jarl Ulfric does not trust wandering Vigilants to have Windhelm’s best interest in mind. But you, under Ulfric’s banner—”

Her expression sours. “The Vigilants remain neutral, in this and all things that are not related to the Daedra. We are not part of your Rebellion.”

Jorleif bows his head shortly. It’s an odd thing to see, from a Nord man in the capital city of the Stormcloaks. “Yes, that is my point entirely. Would this task go to just _any_ Vigilant, word may spread. I trust the Keeper has more discretion?”

She crosses her arms. “That depends on what the issue is. If it’s endangering your citizens, I would be remiss if I didn’t warn them.”

“No, no,” Jorleif says. “Well. Not the regular citizens, anyways.”

Her brows meet sharply. Eres pointedly lowers her hood, and runs a hand through her hair so that her ears cannot be missed. Jorleif sees them, and his face goes carefully blank.

“That…is not what I intended,” he says haltingly. He shifts, uncomfortable. “We were aware of your…origins.” Eres hums, nonplussed. “The only victims have been within the dungeons. Criminals,” he explains. “And guards.”

“The guards, as well?” Consider her interest piqued. “What’s happened to them?”

“They’ve all but vanished into thin air,” Jorleif throws his hands up, exasperated. “First it was only the prisoners – they’d suddenly just disappear from their cells. At first, it was believed that they were simply escaping, but then more of them started to disappear, and then the guards, too… All that is left behind is blood.”

“Blood?”

“On the walls, the floors,” Jorleif shakes his head. “It’s everywhere – you’ll see.” He hands her a key. “We haven’t been able to trace where the blood comes from, though we suspect it is that of the victims. But even so, if they are all dead, where could they have gone? There is but one exit, and none have come through it unaccounted for.”

Eres palms the key. “I’ll see what I can find out. Where is this dungeon?”

“Just through this door.” Jorleif opens it, and steps inside to hold it open for her. Beyond it appears to be some sort of lounge room for the guards – even now there are a few milling about. One is even asleep on the floor, using his rolled up, padded armor as a pillow. Jorleif points to a narrow hallway just to the right of the doorway. “Down the stairs there and straight ahead. There is a guard posted at the door, but we haven’t let anyone inside since the last disappearance.”

“And no one has disappeared from outside the dungeon?”

“Only those who were there overnight.”

Eres’ eyes narrow. Only at night? Or had they only noticed those disappearances in the morning? What could make a man just disappear?

“I’ll return once I’ve found something.”

“Please do. I will be in the throne room if you need any assistance.”

Jorleif leaves, and Eres ignores the guards that stare at her as she descends into the hallway that leads to the dungeon.

The sole guard who sits outside of it, sprawled haphazardly across a rickety wooden chair, straightens when she approaches.

She blinks in surprise when she sees him. “Hjerik?”

He stands, and bows his head slightly. “Good morning, Keeper.”

“Is this your usual post?”

“No, Your—” he pauses, and his face scrunches in confusion. He doesn’t seem to know quite how to refer to her.

The guard appears to be in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, with laugh lines and crows’ feet and a salt-and-pepper beard covering his chin. He is not even remotely attractive. His eyes, though, do not stare at her with barely disguised hate, and that at least is a plus.

“Just Eres, please,” she tells him. “Have you been assigned to me?”

Hjerik nods. “I’m to stay here in case you need me inside.”

He doesn’t look particularly thrilled about that.

“I will be fine on my own for now, Hjerik. Thank you.” His relief is palpable. The Nords have always been quite the suspicious bunch. There’s no telling what might be going through his head.

Hjerik does not sit back down until she moves past him, unlocks the door, and steps inside.

At the sight of the blood splattered over the dark stones of the dungeon, Eres is suddenly glad for the door that separates her and Hjerik, waiting outside, for he does not witness her shudder. The scene is far too reminiscent of what she had seen at the Temple – only minus the bodies.

She walks from cell to cell, and, when she tugs on the doors, she realizes they have all been unlocked. Stepping inside one of them, she looks around at the bloodied straw that serves as a poor sleeping mat, at the walls, the shackles…

There is, from what she can see, no sign of even a struggle. The straw would have been kicked all over the cell if there had been, she is sure. But it remains neatly piled in one corner, a poor-quality fur laid atop it. Even the fur is streaked with blood.

Eres crouches, and conjures the ever-bright magelight in one hand. Even with close inspection under such bright direct light, she cannot see any sign that anything is missing aside from the prisoner themselves.

It is, as Jorleif had said, as though they had vanished into thin air. How very strange.

Eres exits that cell, and, looking over the others, notes that they all appear to be the same way – mostly undisturbed, save for the bloodstains.

The small table and chairs set up in one corner, likely where the guard would sit while on duty, were also stained with blood. The tabletop looks as though someone was dragged across it, but when she follows that trail to the floor, there is nothing but a few drops of blood. Whoever’s body had been there had likely been carried from there onward.

Which meant that the bodies likely hadn’t “vanished” at all, but they had been taken. By someone. Or _many_ someones. It had to be a sizeable enough operation, to overpower the guards and the prisoners without leaving any sign of combat…

Eres turns from the table, and stops in her tracks, frowning.

There is a small narrow opening in the wall, leading into another room. Even with the bright lighting afforded to her from the hovering orb of magelight, she had very nearly missed it entirely.

Eres draws her silver sword just in case, and moves carefully for the opening.

But when she sends her light inside, she is disappointed. There is no one within it, as there had not been in any other area of the dungeon. Like the cells, and the guard’s lounge, this room, too, was splattered with blood.

Given the barrels all shoved into one corner, Eres would have guessed that it was a storage room of some kind, possibly for supplies for feeding or caring for the prisoners. She _might_ have guessed that that was all this room was, were it not for the statue on the far wall.

Covering the entire wall to the opposite side of the barrels is a mural, carved into stone, and at the very center of it is posed the statuesque form of a woman. A woman that Eres does not recognize.

The statue doesn’t look like any of the female Divines that she can think of, or even any of the Daedric Princes who often took female forms, such as Meridia or Nocturnal – Eres had studied up on quite a few of them, following Altano’s betrayal.

She knew that this statue, whoever it was, was not of any Divine or Prince she knew of. And, it, too, was splattered with blood.

But something drew her to it.

Sheathing her sword, Eres approaches it slowly, looking at it first from one side, and then the other. The statue appears almost to be set into the stone behind it, but when she sniffs – she can smell something that reeks almost of sewage and stale water. There is a draft from behind this statue, she can tell – both with her nose, and with her ears. There is just the tiniest whistle that she can hear only if she holds her breath and focuses. Any human would have missed it entirely.

She tries to find a clasp, a seal or a seam, something – anything – that might trigger the statue to move or swing open. She _knows_ there is something behind it. She would bet her entire estate _and_ the Temple’s that whatever had happened to the prisoners and guards within these dungeons had to do with this damn statue, and whatever was directly behind it.

But even with careful inspection, Eres cannot locate anything that might open it. She even attempts just _pulling_ at the damned thing, but it doesn’t budge.

Taking a step back, Eres sighs. She will have to speak with Jorleif. Surely, he must know something about that statue. It isn’t exactly inconspicuous.

Hjerik stands so abruptly when she exits that he nearly knocks over the table beside him.

“Did you need assistance, Keeper Eres?”

“I might, actually,” she admits. “Do you know anything about that statue in there?”

Hjerik frowns. “Statue? You mean the blind lady?”

She raises a brow at him. “Blind lady?”

Hjerik shrugs. “That’s what some of the guard calls her. She’s got a blindfold on.” Eres hadn’t noticed, but then, she’d been too busy trying to figure out how to move it to appreciate its appearance. “I’ve never really heard anything about her. She’s just always been there, long as I have.”

“And how long have you been working as a guard here?”

“Thirteen years, mum,” Hjerik answers.

“Hmm.” Odd. She thanks him for what little information he’d offered her, and makes her way up the stairs to find Jorleif.

“Did you find anything?” Jorleif asks, as soon as he sees her approaching.

“I might have,” she says slowly. “I’m not sure. Do you know anything about that statue down there?”

“Ah,” Jorleif closes his eyes and nods. “The Maiden Statue.”

“The Maiden? Which Maiden?”

Jorleif shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s always been there. There’s some kind of passage behind it, but it can only be opened with the blood of a vampire. Or, it used to before…”

Her eyebrows raise high on her forehead. “The blood of a vampire?” That sounds a _lot_ closer to Vigilant business than just some missing criminals and guards. “You didn’t think to mention this to me before? Did you not suspect it could have been vampires?”

Jorleif at least has the grace to look somewhat sheepish. “I didn’t think it was relevant. The last time it was active was probably…twenty years ago? The Vigilants came then, too. But the Maiden Statue can’t be opened now, even with vampire blood. It’s been sealed shut. There’s only the one entrance now. We’d have noticed if there were vampires milling about.”

“Are you sure about that?” Eres asks, dubious.

“The…vampires, or…?”

“The Statue,” she sighs, her irritation building. How could he not have thought this was relevant before? “Are you certain it can’t be opened now?”

“We’re sure,” Jorleif says quickly. “The Vigilants sealed it shut back then, the first time. It can’t even be opened with vampire blood. We tried that before, when we tried to recover the bodies.”

“Hm…” Eres frowns. “Do you remember which Vigilants investigated this incident before? Do you have any records of the first incident?”

“Ah…” Jorleif’s brow furrows, and he looks down at the ground, crossing his arms. It takes him a long moment, but finally his head snaps up. “Jacob! That was his name! A man named Jacob led the investigation back then. I think he took all the records with him, though.”

Eres’ head spins.

Jacob. _That_ Jacob?

“This may seem like an odd question,” Eres starts, “but did any other Vigilants come with him, for this investigation? And how many of them left?”

“Ah… I can’t remember,” Jorleif admits. “I do remember he left on his own, though. I think he said the others had gone before him, and he was just finishing up.”

Dread sinks low into her stomach.

Something of it must show on her face, because Jorleif’s expression falls into dismay. “Do you think it’s related to what happened then…?”

“Let’s hope it isn’t,” she mutters, already turning for the door. “For both our sake’s.”

“Wait, where are you going? What about the investigation?”

She marches off, her mind already miles away.

“To the Temple!” She shouts over her shoulder. “I’ll be back once I’ve figured this out.”

She stops suddenly at the door, and turns, pointing at the door down into the dungeons. “Let no one inside that dungeon until I return. No guards, no prisoners—I don’t even want a damn Skeever in there if you can help it. Keep that dungeon sealed. Find somewhere else to house your criminals.”

Jorleif jogs to meet her at the door, lowering his voice so that he cannot be heard across the throne room. “And what are we supposed to do until you return? How long will it be?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, almost to both questions. “Hopefully not too long,” but she can make no promises – she has no idea how difficult it will be to find Jacob’s records. “I’ve already told you what to do until I return. Keep the dungeon sealed. And no one who doesn’t need to know about this should be told. Keep it quiet. Last thing we need is some curious idiot sneaking in there and making things worse.”

Jorleif nods quickly, his eyes wide. “Do—Do you think we’re in danger here in the palace?”

“No,” she says, and she hopes that she’s right. “But I would move the guards from that room somewhere else, if you can. There’s no need to tempt fate.”

“I will,” Jorleif agrees. “We will…make arrangements. Please return soon.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Eres shoves her way out of the front door of the palace, walking so briskly for the gates that she may as well be jogging. She has to make it back to the Temple as quickly as possible.

Jacob. _Damn it_.

His voice rings in her ears, as real as if he’d been walking right beside her.

_“Once again…Once again, I alone survive…”_

Had he been talking about this? Was this incident in Windhelm what he’d meant?

Gods, it had to be.

_“Even I…Even I was once corrupted by him…In my time of need… I…I was dying. He offered me his help…”_

Molag Bal.

Jacob’s encounter with him before. He could not have had more than one dealing with the likes of Molag Bal, Eres was certain.

Twenty years ago, here in Windhelm, Jacob and the Vigilants had been compromised by Molag Bal, and Jacob had been the only survivor. Twenty years ago, prisoners and guards started disappearing from the cells of the Windhelm dungeon, taken and killed by vampires – Molag Bal’s creations. The Maiden Statue, too, activated only by vampiric blood, had been opened once before, and sealed shut.

It had happened once, and now it's happening again – under Eres’ watch. Molag Bal had a hand in this, she's sure of it – but she needs to know _exactly_ what had happened before. She will not be opening that statue until she knows exactly what she will face on the other side.


	2. The Windhelm Report

ACT III  
CHAPTER II  
“THE WINDHELM REPORT”

Though winter in the Northern holds of Skyrim never seems to _truly_ end – the mountainous expanses are almost always covered with at least a light dusting of snow or frost – the approach of spring has at least calmed the terrible weather, and made travel between cities much less treacherous. Blizzards, too, and pop up storms are much less common in the spring and summer.

Without the usual delays of terrible weather and terrain, Eres manages to ride back to the Temple in just a day and half. She might have pushed it to a single day, even, if she’d rode the horse to breaking – but given that she had technically borrowed it from the Windhelm stables, she at least felt obligated to attempt taking proper care of it.

There is no stable at the Temple, however, and so she must detour to put the grey foal up in Dawnstar. She pays the stable boy well to treat the horse with careful hands.

Then, yet again, she makes the trek up through the mountains.

Under any other circumstance, she might have worried about the fact that she had, in essence, stolen a horse right from under Ulfric’s nose – a man who already wants her kind eradicated from Skyrim. But, given the situation, she hopes it will be excused. If they even noticed.

It takes a few hours to climb into the mountain pass and through the narrow Stuhn Ravine, but soon she is walking through the Temple doors once more, and back into the warm air of the altar room.

An older Vigilant who has taken it upon himself to provide potions and alchemical supplies for those Vigilants on patrol nods at her as she passes. She has never bothered to learn his name. She merely nods back at him, and takes the stairs down into the records room two at a time.

“Gwyneth!”

She hears a gasp, and a clatter. After a moment, the young blonde girl emerges from behind one of the stacks, looking sheepish. “Keeper,” she breathes, “you startled me.”

“Sorry.” Eres says, and though her tone is terse, she does mean it. Gwyneth has been jumpy since then, though it has gotten progressively better over the past few months. Eres cannot blame her. “I need your help.”

“Me?” Gwyneth blinks, points at herself, and then looks around as if she expects that Eres might be talking to someone else.

“Yes, you. Do you see any other women named Gwyneth around here?”

Gwyneth lets out a nervous little laugh, and tucks a strand of tawny blonde hair behind one ear. Her freckles stand out more when she blushes. It really is a shame she’s always in the drab robes—she would look quite beautiful in a nice dress, Eres thinks.

“Of course,” Gwyneth nods, and she clasps her hands together as she approaches. “What can I help you with?”

“The Vigilants keep reports of official investigations, do they not?”

“We do,” Gwyneth nods slowly, her brow furrowing. “Was there a report you needed?”

“How far back do these records go?”

Gwyneth blows a breath out through pursed lips, her eyes looking toward the ceiling. “Hundreds of years, I expect?” She answers finally, after a long moment of mental calculation. “Of course, some of the older records are hardly legible now…”

“So, I should be able to find one from twenty years ago?”

Gwyneth brightens. “Oh, of course. Easily.”

“Show me where.”

Gwyneth leads her down one of the aisles, musing under her breath. The different bookcases do appear to be labeled to some extent, but how exactly the records and books are filed, Eres does not know. She’s never bothered to come down here often before, aside from quick referencing, and poring over The Book of Daedra, once upon a time.

“Ah!” Gwyneth exclaims, reaching for a particular shelf, filled to the brim. “Here we go. Twenty years ago, right? These are all of the reports from the Fourth Era,” Gwyneth points to the label on the side panel of the bookcase, reading: **4:180-4:189** , “Years 180 through 189. If the record you’re looking for was from twenty years ago, it would be in here. Do you know of the exact date?”

She wishes. “Afraid not.” Eres looks at the records – all slim, leather bound journals, with little to no labeling on their spines. If anything at all, they may have a tally – such as I, II, and so on – but nothing that might indicate what the report within their pages entails. “I have a feeling I’ll be down here for a while.”

“I could help,” Gwyneth offers. “If you tell me what you’re looking for.”

If there is anyone amongst the Vigilants that Eres trusts at all, at this point, it would be Gwyneth.

“I’m looking for a report on an incident in Windhelm, roughly twenty years ago. Jacob wrote it.”

Gwyneth’s hand pauses, halfway to the shelf. Eres pretends that she does not see it tremble. “J-Jacob? Wasn’t he…”

“He was,” Eres confirms. “He died at the Beacon.”

Gwyneth’s hand clenches into a fist, and she pulls it close to her body. “Is there something happening… again?”

“No,” Eres says quickly, trying to comfort her. There’s no reason for her to make Gwyneth panic. “Jorleif just asked me for some help with something in Windhelm, and said Jacob had handled something similar back then. I just thought I’d read over his notes from before to get an idea of what might be happening.”

“Oh,” and Gwyneth sighs, relieved. “That makes sense.” She smiles, and though it is weak, she no longer looks as though she might fall into a panic at any moment.

Eres does not necessarily like hiding things from her, but this—there’s no reason to worry Gwyneth just yet. Whatever might be happening in Windhelm seems to be restricted to Windhelm, itself. It won’t reach Gwyneth here in the Temple. Not like Altano.

She hopes.

Gwyneth pulls a number of thin journals from the shelf, and hands them to Eres. Then she grabs just as many for herself, and nods towards the small table in the corner of the room near the desk.

“We can sit there while we look,” Gwyneth offers. “There are a few more from this year, but we can start looking over them.”

Eres follows her, and the two of them bend over the journals and get to work.

Soon, it is nighttime, and the candles they have lit about the table cast dappled light over the pages. Eres’ eyes burn and her head aches, but she refuses to give up just yet. There must be _something_ here.

But she’s lost count of how many reports she’s read, and none of them have mentioned Windhelm.

Eres buries her face in her hands and groans. No one ever said being a Vigilant would take so much damn _studying_. She hated studying.

“Oh, oh!” Gwyneth’s sudden shout startles her, and she lifts her head to find the girl nearly bouncing in her seat. “Look! This might be it!”

Eres pulls the journal from her.

Sure enough, written upon the first page:

**_Windhelm – 4E 180; Jacob._ **

She opens to the next page, and starts reading.

_‘8 Second Seed, 4E 180. All prisoners in the dungeon went missing. The guards, too.’_ That was exactly what Jorleif had called on her to investigate.

_‘9 Second Seed. We caught a vampire in the dungeon…’_

Gwyneth retires soon after she begins reading, exhausted. Eres is glad for her absence – it means she will not have to explain what she finds.

When she finishes reading the report nearly an hour later, Eres holds her head in her hands once more. She cannot even bring herself to groan aloud.

Twenty years ago, Jacob had been in charge of the investigation of disappearances from the dungeon in Windhelm. They’d found a vampire, and managed to capture it, and when interrogated, the vampire had revealed that there was indeed a passageway behind the Maiden Statue. And, as Jorleif had claimed, the statue could only be opened with the blood of a vampire.

They’d used the blood of the vampire they’d interrogated to open the passageway, and then half a day later, there had been screams. The Maiden Statue sealed shut, and would no longer react to the blood.

They found Jacob unconscious somewhere on the outskirts of Windhelm, outside of a collapsed tunnel he claimed had led to the Maiden Statue. Every other Vigilant had been killed within the tunnels except for him.

And, being that the passage had been sealed from both ends, Windhelm had decided to end the investigation there, and Jacob had taken all the evidence with him.

Had he meant to go back eventually, or had he only taken the report because he knew someone might make the connection that he had been corrupted within those tunnels? How else would he have been the only one to survive?

But, if the passage had somehow been opened again, and the Vigilants from before had never found the vampires to blame originally… Was it possible they could still be down there, and only just now attacking again after such a long silence? And why now, after twenty years? Why had they never attacked again before now?

There is one possibility. Eres does not want to even consider it.

Molag Bal had said he would drag her to his realm if she was corrupted. Jacob had been corrupted within those tunnels, and presumably many others within the Vigilant order, before they’d been killed.

What if the Maiden Statue had been unsealed, and the disappearances had started up again, all because of her?

What if Molag Bal was trying to get to her, specifically, knowing she would be the one to investigate? Could it be him, waiting for her on the other side of that statue? Lying in wait to trap her until she is compromised?

Eres shuts the journal, sighing.

She frowns suddenly, looking closer at the pages. They don’t seem to close all the way – like something is stuck between the empty pages towards the back of it.

When she opens the journal again to the pages that have separated, she finds a singular key, nestled between them, with a thin piece of twine looped around it and tied shut.

Eres would bet her salary she knows exactly what door this key goes to. That Maiden Statue hadn’t been sealed by accident – it had been shut purposefully, and locked. By Jacob? Or someone at Windhelm? And why would they give the key to the Vigilants?

More importantly, if the key was _here_ , how could it have been opened again?

Eres’ head feels like it’s splitting open. Jacob, Molag Bal, the Maiden Statue, _vampires_ …

Eres lifts her head again suddenly, eyes widening.

“Vampires,” she breathes.

She’d been hearing rumors of the reformation of the Dawnguard for the past few weeks now, and she hadn’t given it a second thought. But the timing… The timing was suspicious.

The disappearances start up again in Windhelm, and now the Dawnguard are reforming? To fight some “vampire menace” that Eres herself hasn’t seen? Has she spent so long holed up in this Temple that she’s lost all sense of what’s going on outside of it? Could vampires really not just be rising up in Windhelm, but _everywhere_ , all at once?

She hates to leave the Maiden Statue unattended, but… she knows nothing of fighting vampires – that prostitute in Whiterun hardly counted. There was a marked difference between a foolish newborn and an elder, experienced vampire – or vampires, plural, who had managed to route an entire squad of Vigilants. And she refuses to go into that passage unprepared. If there’s anyone who might know about vampires, it would be the Dawnguard.

She needs to make sure she has _all_ the pieces this time. She refuses to be caught off guard again.

Eres stands, and pockets both the journal and the key, and heads for her room. It seems she has a journey to make.

She will sleep before she leaves, but she packs her things quickly for the morning. She fills her bag with the supplies she will need for the road, and rolls up the old bedroll she hasn’t used since she travelled with Altano all those months ago.

Then, she moves to the long trunk at the foot of her bed, and opens it. Within it, the shining gem of the sword Dawnbreaker glows up at her – as if knowing that will call upon it. She grabs it, and its sheath, and she sets it beside her bag. If she’s going to be facing vampires, Meridia will be glad to see the sword she gifted her at work.

She readies her quiver, too, and even takes the time to test the draw of her bow – still supple, still powerful. Still as comfortable as ever. She sets her quiver – full of arrows with sharp, silver heads – beside it.

In the morning, with her armor beneath her robes and her cloak pulled fast about her shoulders, geared to the teeth in a way she has not been in quite some time, Eres stops at her dresser as she leaves her room.

Her fingers trace the smooth surface of the carved Horn of Stendarr, set upon its mount. She does not remove it, but she does offer it her brief reverence. She has not forgotten how Stendarr saved her life not so long ago, giving her his blessing in the battle against Molag Bal’s summoned form.

Beside it, there is the miniature statue of the Great Mother, Mara, hardly even a foot tall. From its shoulders, she removes the long, beaded rosary, and draws it over her head, tucking the amulet and beads into her armor beneath her robes. She stops by Gwyneth’s room only long enough to say her goodbyes.


	3. Fort Dawnguard

ACT III  
CHAPTER III  
“FORT DAWNGUARD”

Eres, pointedly, does not stop in Riften on her journey to Fort Dawnguard. She knows, from the rumors she’s heard, that the fort lies through Dayspring Pass, near to the border of Morrowind to the east of Riften. She is at least marginally familiar with the area – Stendarr’s Beacon is not far from the border, itself.

Eres does not go to the Beacon, either, though she knows that there are new Vigilants posted there, and she herself had ordered that the basement be sealed shut. No one would approach the altar again, if she could help it.

Still, she has had enough run-ins with her past in going to Windhelm. She doesn’t need more reminders.

Eres cannot, however, stop herself from gazing up at the spire as she travels east past it. It felt as though it had been years since she’d been there. Had it really only been a few short months since then?

Ahead of her, in the distance, Eres can see the great wall and gate that marks the border to Morrowind, and she sees, too, the trail that curves northward, away from it.

That, she presumes, must be Dayspring Pass, the narrow canyon pass that will lead her to Fort Dawnguard.

Eres turns northward at the fork in the road, and with the Beacon behind her, makes her way into the narrow trail that cuts between the canyon walls.

It soon becomes clear that this is not a path widely used, as even the trail she follows is overgrown with brush and weeds, so much so that she must glance down at her feet to ensure that she is still on it.

“Oh, hello!”

Eres’ hand snaps to the hilt of her sword, her heart leaping in her chest. A man – no, a boy, barely an adult himself – steps out from behind a tree.

“Here to join the Dawnguard, too?” The boy asks, smiling brightly at her. His hair is corn yellow, and with his bright blue eyes and clean-shaven face, he looks as though he can be no older than twenty summers. Younger than herself, even.

Eres glances down at his attire, and relaxes. The boy is wearing naught but a light tunic and breeches, with muddied leather boots. There is an old, worn axe tucked into his belt, and he does at least seem somewhat fit – but his body, and the way he holds himself with it, is not that of a warrior.

“Me, too,” the boy says. He waits for her to get closer, and then merely falls into step beside her, as if they were already close friends. “My name’s Agmaer, by the way.”

“Eres,” she tells him. “And I suggest not jumping out of bushes at people who might mistake you for an enemy.”

“Oh,” Agmaer stumbles, tripping over his own feet, and flushes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just—” he shakes his head. His raggedly-shorn locks fly about his head. He’s going to need to cut that hair, Eres thinks. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m…actually a little nervous to go up there alone. I was hoping someone might stop by.”

“How long, exactly, have you been waiting there for someone to pass by you?”

“Eh…” Agmaer lifts a hand, and rubs the back of his neck, averting his eyes. “Only a few hours…”

Eres snorts. “And if I hadn’t come?”

“I would have made it up on my own!” He protests. “Eventually…”

Eres merely hums, turning her eyes to the tall, stone towers she can now see over the tops of the trees. She follows the hard lines of the towers to the walls that encircle the forts, partially hidden by the trees rising up beside them, and she cannot see a single soul among them.

What good is a fort, if it is wholly and utterly unguarded, Eres thinks, frowning. The walls are strong enough, she can see that, but hadn’t they thought to place a lookout, at least? Even the trees near the walls are too close for comfort for her – a bold enough force could use them to climb the walls, if they were brave enough. Or hell, they could just use a damn ladder, since no one was watching.

Agmaer must have followed her gaze, for she hears a low whistle beside her. “It’s…bigger than I thought it’d be…”

Eres must admit that’s true. The Keep at Fellburg has never been especially large, but Fort Dawnguard is a proper fort – the entire Fellburg Keep could probably fit inside it. A humbling thought.

The path into Fort Dawnguard is blocked by a singular wooden gate, though surrounded by heavy, spiked wooden walls on either side. At least there, Eres sees a guard on either side, both with strange contraptions in their hands.

“Halt!” Calls one of them. “Who goes there?”

“Uh, I—uh,” Agmaer’s voice cracks, and Eres feels a bit embarrassed for him. “I’m Agmaer? Here to join with the Dawnguard?”

“I’m Eres,” says she, and she narrows her eyes at the weapon in the guard’s hands. It truly does look like a miniature ballista, now that she’s closer. How did they manage to make them so small? Were those arrows? They looked needlessly complicated. She hesitates, then says, “Here for the same reason.”

“Oh,” says the other guard, and he disappears from his post. A moment later, the wooden gate yawns open before them. The guard is an older man, with dark brown hair and beard, and a friendly smile. “Welcome to the Dawnguard,” the man says. “I’m Celann. Head up to the Fort and speak with Isran.”

The female guard on the other side eyes the both of them suspiciously, but waves them in.

Isran, as it turns out, reminds Eres sorely of her father in far too many ways. With his barking tone, his gravelly voice and hard eyes – even the way he holds himself like he expects them all to bow when they enter the room.

“Have you ever even fought a vampire before, boy?”

And there was that, too – the demeaning language, the condescending tone of voice. Eres immediately dislikes him.

“Well, no, but—”

“And what weapons have you trained with?”

“Well, none, but, I, uh,” Agmaer pulls his axe from his belt. “I fought wolves off the farm before a few times. With my Pa’s axe.”

Isran throws his head back and lets out a derisive laugh. “ _’My Pa’s axe’_ , he says,” and he shakes his head. Agmaer’s shrinks in on himself. “Stendarr preserve us,” Isran mutters. Eres forces herself not to react – a worshipper of Stendarr, here? Isran turns then, looking at her. “Tell me you’re at least not _quite_ as hopeless as this one.”

Eres bites her tongue on what she actually wants to say, and instead calls up the practiced manners that had been instilled from her from birth. “No, sir,” she manages. “I’ve killed vampires before.”

Isran’s brows rise, and he turns his body towards her – thoroughly ignoring the poor Agmaer, who remains standing awkwardly beside her.

“Well, well, now,” Isran murmurs, looking her up and down. “Not what I would have expected, from the look of you. Your weapon of choice?”

“My bow,” she says. “Though I’ve some skill with a sword as well, for close combat.”

“Finally, someone useful,” Isran grumbles. “If you head for the back, you’ll find one of my men. Ask them where the supplies are, and make yourself at home. You can take whatever you need, for now, and we’ll get you fitted with some proper armor,” he glances at her clothes dismissively. “You might want to see about learning a crossbow, too.”

Then, presumably dismissing her, Isran turns back to Agmaer.

“Now for you. See that crossbow there, boy? Grab that and aim at the barrel. We’ll see if you can be of any use to me.”

Eres gives Agmaer a little smile as she turns away, and she is glad to see him return it, however briefly. Isran was a man with a strong force of personality who might crush a young boy like Agmaer – or build him up into something greater than himself.

Eres hoped it was the latter. He reminded her a little of Yosef, back home.

Eres does take Isran’s advice, though she doesn’t bother with the armor. The Dawnguard’s armor is a bit too heavy and bulky for her liking, and she relies far too much on her agility to risk it weighing her down. The crossbow, too—the mini-ballista she’d seen—was too slow and heavy for her to bother with. By the time she shot one bolt and reloaded another, any enemy she hadn’t killed already could be on top of her.

She does not immediately reveal that she is a Vigilant, especially once she hears from others that Isran had once been a Vigilant himself, and hadn’t left the Order on the greatest of terms. She doesn’t know if Isran holds a grudge against them or not, but she does not want to risk it.

In the meantime, she speaks with those stationed at the fort, and gathers what information she can on the vampire uprising they seem so concerned about.

According to them, vampires had been growing bolder and bolder as of late – in some cases, even being so bold as to attack towns in broad daylight. At first the attacks seemed like isolated incidents, perhaps feral vampires losing control of themselves and attacking indiscriminately. But then, Isran had noticed that these little insurrections were happening all across Skyrim, it seemed, and with more frequency than ever before.

And so, he had reformed the Dawnguard. To protect the world from the “blasted Vampires”. Isran, as he tells it, is absolutely certain that _something_ is happening behind the scenes. Something big.

Eres is inclined to believe him. The disappearances of those at Windhelm, and the growing, so-called “vampire menace”, seemed to have started up around the same time, about a month prior to Eres’ arrival.

What was happening in Windhelm was likely only the very tip of the iceberg of a much, much bigger problem.

But Eres, again, isn’t sure how it’s all connected – that is, she isn’t, until a mere four days after arriving, she hears Isran spitting the word “Vigilant” like it’s a curse.

“The _Vigilants_ and I were finished a long time ago, Tolan. Why are you here?”

Eres halts mid-step, halfway to heading to the dining hall, and instead turns and presses herself against the wall. From this angle, she can only see Isran’s stern figure – with his dark scowl and crossed arms, glaring at whoever stands across from him.

A Vigilant? _Here_ , of all places?

“You know why I’m here,” the man, Tolan, pleads. “The Vigilants have been attacked! The vampires – they’re much more dangerous than we ever believed—”

Eres’ brows crease, thoughts racing. The Vigilants? Where? The Temple? But she’d never seen this man. It couldn’t have been at the Temple. Eres yearns to send word to Gwyneth, still, just to ensure she’s fine.

“And now you want to come running to the safety of Fort Dawnguard, is that it?” Isran scoffs. “I remember Keeper Carcette telling me repeatedly that this fort is naught but a crumbling ruin, not worth the expense and manpower to repair. And now that you’ve stirred up the vampires against you, you come begging me for help?”

Keeper Carcette. Eres knew that name – she was the Keeper for the southernmost Vigilants, stationed at the Hall of Vigilants in the Rift. Eres had never met her – there was rarely any need for correspondence between Keepers, but Eres knew _of_ her.

“Isran…” Tolan starts, and Eres knows what he will say before he says it. “Keeper Carcette is dead. The Hall of the Vigilants, everyone… they’re all dead. You were right, we were wrong—” Tolan’s tone shifts, into irritation, “is that not enough for you? What else do you want me to say?”

“Yes, well…” Isran quiets a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is gentler, more so than Eres has ever heard it. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I tried to warn you. I _am_ sorry, you know. But I don’t know what you expect us to do about the Hall.”

“Not the Hall,” Tolan says. “We were investigating some activity outside of Dimhollow Crypt. There’s something going on in there, I know it. I have to finish what they started. Brother Adalvald was certain it held some long lost, vampire artifact of some kind…” A sigh. “We didn’t listen to him, either…”

“I have to go back there. I have to find out what those vampires are up to. It’s the least I can do… after what happened. I have to avenge them.”

“Tolan,” Isran sighs. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’m going, one way or another. With or without your help.” Tolan says tersely. “But if you’re really trying to take the fight to the vampires like you say you are, you’d help me in this, Isran.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, Tolan,” and Isran says this as though it is not opinion, but fact. “You Vigilants have never been trained for this sort of thing—”

Well, he had a point, Eres concedes. What little “training” even she had received had been more in tracking down those who might be worshipping Daedra – not throwing yourself headlong into a vampire nest.

Tolan makes a noise of disgust. “Yes, Isran, I know what you think of us. That we’re all cowards. That we deserved it. That our deaths only proved our weakness. Stendarr grant that _you_ do not face the same test and be found wanting. I’m going to Dimhollow Crypt. Perhaps I can be of _some_ assistance to you,” he spits sarcastically.

“Fine,” Isran mutters. “I’ll have one of my men meet you there. Be careful, Tolan.”

Tolan merely scoffs, and Eres hears the sound of retreating footsteps, and then that of a door slamming shut.

Eres steps out of the shadows, and approaches Isran.

“I couldn’t help but overhear…”

Isran looks at her, and quirks a single brow; unimpressed. He very clearly knows she had been listening the entire time. “ _’Overhear’_ , you say,” he shakes his head. “I warned them that this would happen months ago, and no one listened to me. It was only a matter of time before the Hall was attacked too, after what happened to the Beacon, _and_ the Temple… The Vampires won’t stop until they’re eradicated. But did they listen to me? No, of course not.”

Eres works her jaw, and sighs. “Isran, the Beacon and the Temple – those attacks had nothing to do with vampires.”

“Oh?” Isran asks, turning to face her. “And you would know this, I assume…?”

Eres narrows her eyes. She gets the distinct feeling that Isran knows much more about her than she’d like.

“Because I was there,” she tells him. She makes sure to speak low enough that her voice will not travel, even in the cavernous room they stand in. “It had nothing to do with vampires, believe me.”

“Ahhh,” Isran says slowly, and he nods. “And now it comes out. What you’ve been hiding from me all along. What you _think_ you’d been hiding from me.” His smirk does not reach his eyes. “ _Keeper_.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling the approach of a migraine. “There’s a reason I didn’t tell you.”

“So I assume,” Isran nods again. His expression changes – ever so slightly. He doesn’t look quite so angry anymore. “I allowed you to stay because I needed the help of someone with experience. I didn’t too much care why you decided to come here, of all places.” But his brow furrows. “But I admit, I am curious what you would be here for, when I’m sure there are other things that must demand your attention back at the Temple.”

Eres sighs, and looks towards the door Tolan had left from. “Nothing so important as this. I was investigating a separate incident to do with vampires before I came here. I don’t have much experience with them. I wanted to learn what I could about them, before I got myself in over my head. Figured this was the best place to come.”

“You figured right,” Isran agrees. “You believe this might be connected to whatever you were investigating before?”

“I don’t know,” and Eres hates that that’s all she can say. She truly _doesn’t_ know. “But it’s worth taking the time to find out. This is all starting to sound a lot bigger than what I thought I was dealing with.”

“So you’ll stay.” Isran says quietly. “You’re going to help, then.”

“I certainly can’t walk away from it.” Eres says, and she decides not to bring attention to the fact that the man looks almost relieved by it. 

“That’s good to hear.” And he actually sounds as though he means it, surprisingly. “And now that everything’s out in the open – shall I assume that you want to be the one to meet Tolan at Dimhollow? You are of the Order, after all.”

Eres nods. “Send me, and I’ll figure out what’s really going on. And keep him from getting himself killed,” she adds. “Hopefully.”

“I would hurry, if I were you,” Isran mutters. “Tolan is emotional. He won’t wait for long.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She sighs, and moves to gather her things to leave. “For what it’s worth, Isran – they _should_ have listened to you. I don’t know why they didn’t.” She thinks of Altano, and feels cold. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Isran shrugs, but the movement is stiff, and his jaw is tight. “Thank you,” he says stiffly. “You at least, seem more practical than most of the Vigilants I’d dealt with. Perhaps if it had been you instead of Carcette…” he shrugs again. “What’s done is done. We can’t change that now. But we can do what we can to prevent things from getting worse. Go catch up with Tolan. I’ll send word to the Temple and let them know where you’ll be.”

She’s surprised by the offer, but she nods.

When she leaves for Dimhollow Crypt sometime later, she does not react when she hears Isran’s whisper – too low for the humans near them to hear, but perfectly clear to her own ears:

“May Stendarr’s Light guide you, Sister.”


	4. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have altered the sequence of the pedestal puzzle simply because it made more sense to me this way.

ACT III  
CHAPTER IV  
“AWAKENING”

Eres drops into a crouch, sighing. With a hand, she reaches out to close the eyes of the Vigilant lying prone before her. A fresh kill, judging by the way those vampires had been acting – but his skin is ice cold, and a sickly blue. They’d drained him completely. Not even a drop of his blood had spilled.

“Tolan, you idiot.” She’s not the type to spit on someone’s grave, so to speak, but there is little more she can say about him. She hadn’t known him, hadn’t even properly met him, but she’d thought he’d be smarter than this. “What were you thinking, walking into a nest of vampires by yourself?”

Tolan, of course, offers her no answers.

Shaking her head, Eres rises, and readies one of her silver arrows.

If Tolan was an idiot for waltzing into a vampire nest alone, she was going to be an even bigger idiot and finish what he’d started. Or die trying.

Eres is getting really tired of Nords and their thrice-damned puzzles. Why couldn’t they just make anything obvious?

Eres does have to admit that this puzzle doesn’t seem very difficult – though she still wonders why Nords are so fond of putting them in ruins in the first place. The two vampires that had been loitering around before hadn’t seemed to have figured it out, but she would bet her entire purse that solving the puzzle would reveal whatever it was they’d been looking for down here.

Oh, well. Good for her.

Eres looks at the pedestals, and at the strange, purple fire that erupts from divots in the floor beneath her feet. There are fixed numbers of pedestals on raised daises, and when she pushes one, she feels it give, following the divot in the floor.

Well. Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

She moves to the first pedestal, with the magical fire blazing around it from the ground. Cautiously, she removes one of her arrows and pokes it through the fire. It does not burn.

With that question answered, Eres places her hands through that same fire, on either side of the pedestal, and pushes it until she reaches the end of the flames’ reach. As expected, she hears a low, hollow _clunk_ —and the fire grows, extending from the pedestal she’d pushed down the divots in a particular pattern.

Eres repeats the same for each pedestal, pushing them to the end of the flames that sprouted from the pedestal before it, until all of them connect and form an obtuse, somewhat disjointed ring of purple flames.

The floor quakes beneath her feet as it shifts under her. The ground she stands on drops, her heart dropping with it, then stops suddenly. In front of her, the ground drops a step further, and a few feet closer to the center of the circular platform, the ground dips violently again, until there is a set of stairs leading down—and then, from the very epicenter, emerges a singular, onyx pillar with a rounded top.

And then it all stops, and Eres is standing there surrounded by the inactive pedestals, and this one onyx pillar, and nothing happens.

She frowns. Surely, they couldn’t have just been looking for a nice sculpture? There had to be something special about it.

Eres approaches it warily, but the sensation of magical energy curling in the air had faded once she’d completed the ritual. If it was not a magical object, then what could these vampires have been toiling in this crypt for? Something inside it? Some kind of relic, maybe? What kind of relics would be so important to vampires?

The pillar remains, unassuming. The rounded top upon it, however, looks as though it can be pressed down. A button?

Carefully, Eres sets her right hand upon it. In her left hand, she clutches her silver dagger, ready for whatever may come.

Again, nothing happens. No movement, no shifting of the floor, no surge of magical energy. She doesn’t die suddenly – which is good news.

It’s quite clear what she needs to do. It’s not even the first mysterious button she’s ever pressed.

And so she presses down, grunting a bit with the effort—it’s harder to press than it looks, being made of stone and all and—

A raw, searing pain bursts through the palm of her hand, and she only barely gets a glimpse of the spike that has erupted from the back of her hand before her knees give out and she drops to the floor, swearing in every language she knows. It takes everything in her to not instinctually yank her hand away, knowing that she’ll make it worse, and just when she regains herself and makes to stand—

The spike retracts, as if it was never there, and when she stands and looks down at the now bloodied pillar, she can still see no indication of the spike within it, almost as if it had simply vanished inside it.

And then the ground shifts again, and Eres takes a step back, reaching for her bow, not wanting to be anywhere near _whatever_ is going to come out.

The ground rumbles ominously beneath her feet, and the small pillar that had impaled her retreated into the floor below only to be replaced with a much larger, and taller onyx pillar.

And then she hears another click, and the rumbling fades, and still this new pillar remains, unmoving. Silent. And utterly nondescript.

Except for a singular, golden button on one of its sides.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Eres glares at it, not at all thrilled about having to press another button after the first had put an inch-wide hole in her good hand.

Instead of risking life and limb, Eres uses the end of her bow, keeping as much distance between herself and the button as possible – and very quickly jabs the end of the bow into the button.

 _Click_.

Eres jumps back, bringing her bow back with her and nocking an arrow just in case. At this point, she doesn’t know what to expect.

Even if she had been able to have a guess at what might be inside, what emerges as the panel on one side of the onyx pillar slowly drops into the floor is the absolute last thing she could have ever expected.

A woman. A very, very pale looking woman who has been inside that pillar for who knew how long and yet had _caught herself_ as she fell out of it. A very pale woman who had been locked inside a tomb and now was _groaning_ as she brought herself to her feet.

Red eyes. Red eyes that glow unnaturally, seemingly with its own light, in the dim lighting of the crypt. And, Eres notes, eyes dropping to her mouth – she’s certain those are fangs.

Great. Just her luck. 

Serana can still smell the scent of the girl’s blood standing in front of her. Were it not for the smell, the sound of it dripping upon the stone around them would have alerted her, too, as the girl’s hand bleeds steadily from a puncture through the center of her palm. Serana’s sure the taste on her lips is that of her blood. What else would have woken her from her slumber?

There’s something off about her scent, though. Something that smells like danger and fire and brimstone, but also like the comfort of woodsmoke and pine. She’s covered from head to toe in a mismatch of dark leather armor and robes, her hair just as dark, her skin a deep tan in the dim light—but her eyes. Her eyes are a a sharp, greyish-blue, like the color of an approaching storm on the horizon. Serana had never seen eyes like those. And Serana had lived for a long, long time.

“Who are you?” Serana asked. “Who sent you here?”

“Who were you expecting?” The girl asks. Her voice is husky, maybe from disuse. Maybe from the opposite. Maybe it’s just the way her voice sounds. Either way, it gives her voice a raspier quality than Serana had expected from just looking at her. It doesn’t suit her.

Serana looks at the warm tone of the girl’s complexion, to her blue eyes, to the distinct lack of fangs within her mouth. “Someone more—well, like me.”

The girl tilts her head. Her dark hair falls into her eyes with the movement. “A vampire, you mean.”

“Yes,” Serana says, a little impatient. “Can’t you tell just by looking at me?”

The girl’s eyes flicker over her features, lingering on her eyes. They’re usually the first give away for a vampire. Too bright. Too red. Too…glow-in-the-dark. For creatures of the night, her kind wasn’t exactly known for being inconspicuous.

“The Dawnguard would want me to kill you.” The girl says, but Serana notes with interest that she makes no move to do so. She has a bow held loosely in one hand, a quiver resting at the back of her hips, attached at a slightly upward angle to keep the arrows from falling out. Her right hand—the one that was currently bleeding all over the floor—was suited with what appeared to be a custom-made archer’s vambrace, and it rested not-quite-easily at her side.

The girl hadn’t moved to kill her—yet. But Serana doesn’t doubt that she is prepared to draw her bow if she has to. A quick glance at the corpses around her show vampires like her with such arrows laid in them with pinpoint accuracy—and the skin around the wounds are burned black and angry around the edges.

Silver.

“Not fond of vampires, I take it?” Serana asks, quirking a brow. This girl might have experience with killing vampires, yes. But Serana is freshly fed—if minutely—and this girl’s dominant hand had been impaled. She won’t be able to draw her bow so easily. If it comes down to it, Serana is certain she can take her down in a fight.

Serana is also certain that _she_ knew that Serana can take her.

“Put it this way,” Serana continues, “kill me, you’ve killed one vampire. But if people are looking for me, there’s something bigger going on. I can help you find out what that is.”

Curiosity sparks in the girl’s eyes, but they then shift slightly behind her. “And why were you locked away like this?”

Serana sighs. “That’s…complicated. And I’m not entirely sure if I can trust you just yet. If you want to know the whole story, help me get back to my family’s home. We can figure out everything else from there.”

The girl looks doubtful of her story, as true as it is, but she does at least look intrigued. If nothing else, Serana is sure she’s noticed the Elder Scroll on her back.

“Fine,” she says. “Where do you need to go?”

“My family used to live on a little island to the west of Solitude. I’m assuming they still do,” she shrugs. She can’t really imagine her father ever giving up on that castle. “By the way, my name is Serana. It’s good to meet you.” Extenuating circumstances though they may be, and all.

“…Eres,” the girl says. She still doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Serana wouldn’t be, either. “I don’t suppose you know a quick way out of here.”

“Afraid not,” Serana admits, looking around for herself. “Everything’s…changed since I got locked away. I get the feeling it’s been a long time.”

Eres starts walking, expecting her to follow. Serana’s not entirely sure she hadn’t just picked a direction and hoped for the best, but she follows, anyway, because neither of them really know where they’re going.

“I suppose that depends on your definition of long,” Eres comments dryly. For someone who was supposedly sent here to kill her, the girl doesn’t seem all that determined to actually do it. She’s even making jokes.

Serana has to chuckle. “I suppose by a mortal’s standards, just about anything is a long time.” She glances over at Eres, at her freckle-dusted cheeks and smooth skin. “I’m probably ancient compared to you.”

“You’ve aged gracefully, then,” Eres deadpans.

Serana’s bark of laughter surprises even herself. Oh. A vampire-hunter with a sense of humor? She _likes_ this one.

And then she hears a loud roar, and curses.

“Now, look what you did,” Eres mutters darkly. “You woke them up.”

Gargoyles. Serana _hates_ Gargoyles. But she worries for nothing, apparently, because Eres draws her bow against the pain of her wound and something on her hand glows as she fires her arrows. They almost seem to explode on impact, bursting into bright light and sound that sends the great beasts stumbling back with every hit. They can’t get close enough to hit her, and Eres is drawing another arrow almost as soon as she fires one.

The battle is over before she remembers to worry about how rusty she is with her necromancy. Eres is an exceptional archer. Serana looks forward to seeing her when she’s not nursing a hole through one of her hands.

“Impressive,” Serana says aloud, stepping around one of the crumbled ruins of the Gargoyles at their feet.

Eres merely shakes her head, and keeps moving. The dry quips are entirely absent.

When Serana listens closely, she can hear the labored, shallow breathing of someone who’s in a lot of pain and trying desperately to hide it. She can hear even the fluttering pulse at Eres’s neck, which is more distracting than she’d like to admit. Whatever adrenaline might have been blocking her pain before is starting to wear off.

Soon, Serana fears, she won’t be able to draw her bow at all. Hopefully there won’t be any more of those gargoyles, for both their sakes. Serana wasn’t sure she could hold them off alone.

Morthal is the closest town to the crypt Serana was found in, if it can even be called that. It’s more like a tiny, pathetic little village tucked into the most unfortunate place Serana can imagine. She can’t even _feel_ the cold half the time and she still can’t understand why anyone would want to live here.

“You again,” the innkeeper had said when they entered, and had laughed at their snow-covered appearances. “Come on in. I’ll get the fire stoked up for you. Room in the back’s open if you want it.”

“I take it you’ve been here before,” Serana remarks quietly, as they make their way to said room. Serana keeps her hood up despite being inside—she’d heard a few whispers about vampires from the villagers. These people had probably seen her father’s people lurking around the hills nearby. No need to take chances.

“Once or twice,” Eres’s voice is tight as she closes the door behind them. She’s quick to pull a chair up to the short little table at the back of the room and throw her bag to the ground. Her hood comes off next, revealing dark, near black hair that actually looks a bit tinted with a dark red here and there, and Serana notices, not for the first time, just how pale she looks in the light.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Serana finds herself sitting next to her without thinking about it, drawing the girl’s injured hand in front of her.

“You’ll have to wait for a snack, I’m afraid,” Eres says, and pulls her hand back. Then she grabs a wooden bowl, places her hand over it, and proceeds to pour half a bottle of Alto Wine all over it. She hisses once the entire time and goes quiet.

“I already ate, you know that.” Serana snaps, and she yanks the bottle from Eres’s hand and sets it back on the table. “That’s enough. You didn’t even buy that.”

Eres looks wholly unconcerned with that. “They can charge me later.” But she doesn’t grab the bottle again, at least, and instead holds her hand up to the light to inspect it. Either the hole isn’t as big as it originally appeared, or this girl heals absurdly, inhumanly fast.

It’s just about wide enough for Serana to stick a finger through it, if she wanted to.

“Whatever you say,” Serana sighs, and then her brows raise in surprise as a green-gold glow shines from Eres’s left hand as she holds it over her right. “I didn’t know you were a mage.”

“I’m not really trained as one.” Eres sighs. “I know a few things, that’s all. Enough to get by. Nothing more.” Still, Serana can practically see her wound stitching together as they speak, and knows that Eres must have been using it on the way here. It’s the only thing that explains how the wound seemed smaller in less than a day, especially when they’d been walking through a damn blizzard on the way here.

The green-gold light fades, and Eres sags visibly in her seat. The wound hasn’t closed much more than before, but the skin around it looks less irritated and inflamed. Eres’s face, however, just looks even paler than it had before.

“When you lose a lot of blood, you’re not supposed to do things that make you more tired than you already are.” Serana feels like Eres probably already knows this. “You look terrible.”

“Good, you won’t eat me.” The joke falls flat. Mostly because Eres barely had the energy to even get it out.

“Please. I have my standards.” Serana stands, then, and lifts Eres up in her arms before she can protest. It’s lucky she’s too weak to fight her—she’s sure Eres isn’t the type to normally agree to being coddled. Still, Serana places her gently upon the only bed in the room and makes quick work of tugging off her boots and more bulky bits of armor.

By the time she’s made it to pulling off the chest piece, Eres is quite literally barely conscious in her arms. She mumbles a bit when Serana moves her, but she’s basically dead weight. Serana’s glad for the inhuman strength her vampirism gives her.

“Sleep,” she says, though it’s hardly a necessary command. “I’ll watch over you.”

Eres mutters something, but whatever she says is lost to a mess of unintelligible syllables, and she’s out like a light as soon as Serana drops her head back to the pillow.

It’s odd, really. She’s barely known this girl a day, but something about her is so very…alluring. Something about her makes Serana feel not only like she can trust her, but also strangely protective of her. Serana can’t really remember ever feeling protective of someone else.

Serana spends the next hours reading one of the books the innkeeper has left on the shelves, while Eres sleeps off her exhaustion and injuries in the bed. Serana had guessed that Eres was younger than herself already, but she looks even younger when her face is relaxed and soft in sleep.

It’s a strange thing, sleeping. Serana’s been a vampire for so long now, she’s forgotten what it’s really like. She spends more time than she probably should have just watching her—watching the minute little expressions she makes as she dreams. The furrow of a brow here, the scrunching of a nose there. Serana wonders what she sees in her dreams. It’s been—centuries? Longer? Since Serana has dreamed.

Even her time in the crypt wasn’t actually sleeping. Starve a vampire of blood long enough and they’ll go mad. Starve them for longer and they just kind of…stop. They don’t die—not really. It’s sort of like fading, where everything is dark and quiet and time loses its meaning.

Morning comes quickly, it seems. Before Serana knows it, the innkeeper is knocking lightly on the door.

The woman enters before Serana has a chance to pull up her hood, and freezes at the sight of her in the light. For a long, tense moment, the two of them simply stare at one another.

And then the woman looks at Eres sleeping soundly on the bed, looks at her again, and simply shakes her head. “I’m not even going to ask,” she says tiredly, like she’s seen it all before and this is just another one to add to the list.

Still, she has the presence of mind to close the door behind her.

“I’ve brought breakfast. Damn girl doesn’t have an ounce of meat on her bones, for all the running around she does.” The innkeeper seems to be muttering to herself more than Serana, but Serana listens anyway, intrigued despite herself. Just how much did this woman know about her impromptu savior?

“Ain’t seen you before.” The innkeeper sets the tray down on the table, next to the half-empty wine bottle that she doesn’t even glance at. Eres, it appears, hadn’t been lying when she said they didn’t charge her here. “But I’ve seen your kind.”

Serana tenses. She’d been waiting for that one.

“How is it you’ve spent a whole night in here with her blood all over the place and you ain’t gone crazy?” 

“Not all of us succumb to bloodlust so easily,” Serana says evenly, but she has to admit that it wasn’t without concentrated effort. She’d tasted Eres’s blood, and being surrounded by the smell of it for an entire night was certainly tempting. “She’s helping me with something. Wouldn’t really do much good for me to hurt her.”

“I see,” the innkeeper says. She doesn’t sound convinced. “There more of you around here again, now?”

“I don’t know.” Serana answers honestly. “I’ve…been asleep for a long time. She woke me.” She glances over at Eres, but the girl is still dead to the world. Figuratively, of course. “It’s a day’s walk or so, where we came from. She killed all of the others that were there. I don’t know if there were more.”

There’s no reason to mention that they were her father’s men, and that as soon as word failed to return that she’d been recovered, that he’d likely send out more until he found something. Hopefully Eres could get her home before that happened.

“We’ve had our fill of vampires, you hear?” The innkeeper says. “Damn mess, that was. Wherever she’s taking you—take whatever others there might be with you. Gods know the Jarl isn’t good for it.” The woman shakes her head, and sighs. “She helped us get rid of a bunch of vampires what killed a woman and her child not too long ago. Seems ironic she’s walking around with one now.” 

“I’m sorry.” Serana says, and means it. No child should ever get mixed up in this kind of thing. She knew that from experience.

“Sorry doesn’t bring ‘em back,” the innkeeper says, but she shrugs. Like she’s used to it. Like it happens all the time. Serana feels a bit of dread curl into her stomach. Just how brave had vampires been getting, to outright attack villages and children? What had happened while she was asleep?

“I can keep things quiet in here for another couple hours.” The innkeeper offers, and looks her dead in the eyes. “But she _is_ kind of a hero around here. People stop and ask for her help whenever they see her. And if they see you—“

“I understand.” Serana nods. “I’ll wake her soon and we’ll go. We don’t want to cause you any trouble. That’s actually why she’s helping me.”

“Good.” The innkeeper looks between them once more, then leaves in silence.

When the door closes, Serana looks back at Eres. “I know you’re awake.”

Eres doesn’t answer, but she does sit up. Her color looks better. The pallor from the night before seems to have faded with a good night’s rest.

“What happened, with the child?”

“It was—months ago, maybe. Vampire bewitched a man to kill his wife, turned his kid.” Eres reaches down to pull on her boots, and starts to lace them up. “Little girl, maybe ten, eleven? Had no idea she’d been turned.”

Eres finishes lacing her boots, sets her elbows on her knees, and drags her hands down her face. Her bright eyes look dark and haunted, distant. “I killed her.”

Serana nods. “You did what you had to,” she tells Eres. “Recently turned vampires are the most dangerous.”

“She was a kid.”

“And she would have been a kid for an eternity,” Serana responds. “The life of a vampire isn’t one a child should be subjected to. They don’t—“ she sighs, shakes her head. “They don’t have the mental capacity for it. They don’t understand their situation, how their lives have changed, how to cope—how to control themselves…There’s a reason why you’ll never find children in covens of vampires, even the smaller ones. We’re immortal. We don’t grow, or change. I’ve heard of few vampire children who ever managed to mature. It’s more dangerous for them, their coven, and the humans they would feed on. You did what you had to do,” she repeats.

Serana doesn’t like it. It’s never a good thing when a child is killed, and while she can’t say she enjoys being a vampire, she doesn’t agree that they should all be killed just for existing. But a child vampire, unable to control themselves—that girl wouldn’t have just put herself and this village in danger. Her actions would have led to more hatred and vitriol for her kind.

One, for the sake of many. She _gets it_.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for doing what you had to do to minimize casualties.”

“Easier said than done,” Eres sighs. She pulls on the rest of her armor without Serana’s help, and crosses the room to grab her bag. “We should get going. We still have a long way to go.”

Eres reaches into a pocket of her bag and pulls out a folded piece of thick parchment that somehow looks both heavily worn and new at the same time. When she unfolds it, Serana realizes that it is a map of Skyrim.

Serana peers over her shoulder, and traces a path west through a marsh. The map looks slightly different from what she remembers, but she still recognizes it. “We could cut a day or two going through the marshlands, stop in Solitude and then go here through the mountains. My home should be about here,” and Serana points.

“True,” Eres nods. “But we’d also have to cross the bay. I’d never make it across.”

Serana frowns. “Can you not swim?” She asks. “It’s not that far.”

“It’s not, but that water might as well be frozen.” Eres raises a brow at her. “Or did you forget I’m mortal? If I didn’t go numb and drown, I’d freeze to death. There’s a millhouse here, but I doubt they’d be too open to a vampire guest.”

“Oh,” Serana had forgotten. Humans were more susceptible to the cold, and plunging into an icy sea was just about as good as committing suicide. “I’m assuming there isn’t a bridge or some kind of ferry there, then.”

“Afraid not,” Eres agreed. “Though there should be.” Eres runs her finger across the map following a different, much longer path. “It will add a couple of days, but it’s safer to head towards Dragon’s Bridge and continue from there. The marshes are infested with Chaurus, anyhow, and I don’t know about you, but I try to avoid them when I can. Their poison isn’t the greatest feeling in the world.”

“I suppose I can deal with you a bit longer,” Serana says wryly. She doesn’t mean it, really, because who knows how long it’s been since she’s actually had contact with someone other than her family, let alone a human as unique and interesting as Eres.

Eres throws a smirk at her as she puts away the map, and grabs her bow and quiver. “I could say the same for you, vampire.”

“I’ve been good.” And Serana smiles, because it feels good to joke around with someone. “Promise I don’t bite unless you want me to.”

At this Eres’s brows rise high on her forehead. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Depends,” Serana shrugs. “Is it working?”

Eres chuckles. “Maybe,” she says, with a shrug of her own. “Don’t really want to be a vampire, though.”

“Oh, that’s hardly necessary. Plenty of my father’s people used to have little human playthings.”

“And you?”

“Never, actually,” Serana answers honestly. “I’m not that type of girl.”

“Shame,” Eres jokes, and Serana wonders if she means it.

Bandits, as it so happens, are all too common in Skyrim. Serana never spent enough time out of her home to say whether or not they used to be before she was locked away, but she feels like it’s a bit excessive. Still, it does keep her routinely fed, which is a good thing considering that Eres is very human and very fragile, and even the slightest graze of an arrow or sword can make her bleed. And her blood still smells delicious.

It’s like the vampire in her had one taste, and now that she knows she can’t have another, it just wants it more.

“There’s a lot of bandits around here,” Serana says idly. She glances up at the sky, at the rolling clouds above them. It looks like it might storm soon. She hopes it won’t last—they’re almost into the mountains now, and it wouldn’t be great for their itinerary if a blizzard rolled through last minute.

“Easy pickings,” Eres shrugs. She pulls an arrow from a man’s chest and, after inspecting the tip, wipes it clean on her dark pants and puts it back in her quiver. “With a war going on, a lot of people are trying to get out before it gets bad. And that’s not even counting the dragons.”

“Dragons?” Serana’s eyebrows rise nearly to her hairline. “War? What exactly has been going on since I fell asleep?”

“I get the feeling you’ve been asleep for a while,” Eres says, and if that isn’t the understatement of the century, she doesn’t know what is. “The Emperor was killed, so now there’s a war of succession between the Stormcloaks and the Empire. The Stormcloaks want to take back Skyrim for the Nords—their leader is who killed the Emperor. The Empire wants to put Jarl Elisif on the throne.”

“Empire?” Serana is hopelessly, hopelessly lost. “What Empire?”

Eres looks up before grabbing the next arrow from the next fallen body and just stares at her. “The…Empire? From Cyrodiil?”

“Cyrodiil is the seat of an Empire?” She hadn’t seen that one coming. “Gods, it really _has_ been a long time. Definitely longer than we planned.”

“Long time?” Eres laughs, something that sounds incredulous and a little off-kilter. “Serana, the Empire has been around for ages. You—“ and Eres blinks, pauses, and stares at her again like she’s just now seeing her for the first time. “You must be _thousands_ of years old.”

The thought had crossed Serana’s mind—that is, that she had been locked away for more than a couple of centuries. _Millenia_ , though? She had never thought it could have been that long.

“That’s how long this Empire has been around?”

“Give or take a couple centuries, yeah,” Eres yanks another arrow out, this time from between a man’s ribs. The tip, apparently, doesn’t satisfy her, because she huffs and tosses it away like rubbish. “My history’s a bit rusty, but, I’m fairly certain. I guess you can ask your family to know for sure.”

The thought of her family makes her even more bitter now than she was before, though she didn’t think it was possible. Eres makes a face like she’s thinking the same thing.

“They locked you in there for that long?”

Serana sighs. “We won’t know until I get home.” She doesn’t want to think about it. So much time wasted away…

Eres does start moving again, apparently giving up on retrieving the arrows from the other corpses which had fallen quite a bit further away. She looks bothered, though, and keeps glancing at Serana out of the corner of her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing, you’re just,” Eres shakes her head. “A lot older than I thought. You actually are ancient compared to me.”

Serana does laugh at that, and it makes her feel a bit better. “You can’t be older than eighteen. Everyone who’s not a child is ancient to you.”

“I’m twenty-three, actually,” Eres corrects her.

“Oh,” Serana blinks. For some reason, she hadn’t thought Eres could be in her twenties – something about her seemed younger, more innocent. Or, perhaps it was just that Serana just felt so damn _old_ now, and she’d been twenty-five when she was turned—perhaps in a weird way, her mind was trying to rationalize how much older she felt than Eres.

Or, maybe it was just that Eres is an elf, and Serana has never been very good at placing the ages of Mer. They age so slowly it’s always hard to tell from a glance.

“So how did you get mixed up with—the Dawnguard, right?”

“An Orc approached me in town, said they were looking for people to fight against the ‘growing vampire menace’,” Eres quotes, and she deepens her voice as if to imitate him. It’s terrible, and makes her look silly, but it does make Serana smile. “I’d just come from Morthal, just drifting from place to place. Taking work where I could find it. And after what happened with the little girl, I couldn’t say no. Made my way to Fort Dawnguard and joined them, and a few weeks later a Vigilant shows up and says a bunch of vampires attacked their hall. Killed everyone there because they were looking for something, and he’d tracked them to Dimhollow. He was convinced they were looking for something big.” Eres shrugs helplessly, looking oddly casual about the whole ordeal - but Serana has no reason to believe she’s lying, and she seems truthful enough. 

Eres looks at her then, and quirks a brow. “Don’t think he expected you.”

“He wasn’t with you, then.” Serana frowns. “Did he—“

“He was killed by the two vampires who were trying to wake you up. I killed them while they were distracted, but it was too late to do anything for him.” Serana almost apologizes, but Eres shrugs again. “It’s his own fault. We said we’d meet up there. Going in alone was never the plan.”

“You seemed to do alright.”

“I’m different.”

Serana amends her earlier thoughts: _this_ is the understatement of the century. “I can see that.”


	5. Bloodlines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 12/31: Cleaned up some inconsistencies regarding Serana's age/how long she was locked away.

ACT III  
CHAPTER V  
“BLOODLINES”

Two days.

It takes very nearly two days for Eres and Serana to make it from Dimhollow Crypt tucked in the mountains near Morthal to Dragon Bridge, and then up through the winding pass over the northern mountains to the very northern edge of Skyrim’s coastline.

Eres has never been this far north before, and more than once she regrets her decision to escort Serana home. It must be nice to be a vampire and not feel the cold – not that she’d ever want to be one, mind you, but she wouldn’t mind being _warm_ again. Her magic is already drained just keeping the snow from making her boots wet and freezing her toes off. She should’ve thought to pack fur.

“Do you know them?” Serana asks, when Eres comes to a full stop in front of a guarded fortress. The duo of guards posted at the entrance glare at the both of them suspiciously.

“No,” Eres huffs. “Just debating the merits of murder for a warm fire.”

Serana scoffs, rolling her eyes, and shoves her until she starts walking again. Whether it’s due to actual exasperation with her, or a response to the stiffening of those guards’ posture, Eres is too cold to even care.

“We should be close. If I remember right…” Serana moves past her, walking in front for once. More often than not, she had taken to watching Eres’ back – and staying in the shadows in case they crossed anyone who might recognize Serana’s nature.

“There should be a boat somewhere around here…”

“It’s been four whole millennia since you were here,” Eres mutters. She doesn’t raise her voice despite the biting wind, knowing that the woman will hear her. “What if it’s not even here?”

“I can’t imagine Father and his minions haven’t left the island at least once since I was entombed,” Serana responds dryly.

“They could just swim,” Eres shrugs. “Vampires don’t have to worry about freezing.”

“You don’t know much about vampires, still.” Eres seems to see the boat at the same instant that Serana does, for they both start walking toward it from opposite ends. “We don’t feel the cold as much as mortals do, but it still wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“Hmm,” Eres looks at the dilapidated pier, and then at the tiny boat moored beside it, and then finally at the looming island in the distance. With the morning fog, she can just barely see what she thinks might be a building – or some kind of watchtower, but little else. “You won’t die of cold, though.”

“No,” Serana admits. “But we can still get slow and stupid if we’re too cold.”

“Oh, is that all it takes?”

Serana rolls her eyes, and sends just the tiniest spike of ice flying at her face. It disintegrates into a puff of crystalline snow just as it reaches her. “Watch it, Mortal.”

Eres chuckles to herself, brushing the powder from her shoulder. Looking across the bay, she can see little detail of Serana’s home on that little island. Even though she can see it through the fog, and knows it cannot be too far away, it feels as though it might be miles.

“This is usually the part where we get _in_ the boat,” Serana points out.

“Are you ready to go home?” Eres asks instead. She does not move for the boat. Not because she is not a fan of trusting rickety wooden boats to carry her across icy waters, but more that – she must admit – it feels odd to be seeing Serana off in this way. She’d somehow almost gotten used to the woman’s presence, watching her back. It had even been nice, in a way, having someone she felt she could depend on.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Serana sighs. She shakes her head, pulling her hood tighter about her face in the bright light of the morning, and climbs gracefully into the boat.

Eres climbs in after her, and takes hold of the oars without thinking. With the island at her back, she must rely on Serana to keep her heading in the right direction.

Facing Serana, however, means that she can see the uncertainty in the woman’s expression growing ever more apparent the closer they get to her home. Serana speaks nothing of it, but she doesn’t seem to be looking forward to returning home.

Eres can’t blame her, and frankly, she isn’t sure she would even return home at all, were she in Serana’s place. Who had locked her in that tomb for so long? Had Serana even been willing, or had they just forced her into it? From what Serana had said, it seemed like there had been some kind of plan involved, so perhaps she had known – but had she any idea how long she would be kept away?

More to that end, how could it have been, to be locked in a sealed tomb for so many years? Wouldn’t it drive a person mad? How had Serana kept her sanity? Had she been awake the entire time, or had she slept through most of it?

Did vampires even sleep to begin with?

Eres had many questions, not least of all having to do with the scroll that Serana carried on her back. What were vampires doing with an Elder Scroll to begin with? Why lock it away with Serana? Why were they looking for it now?

But Serana was the sort of woman who held her secrets close to her chest, and Eres had not been able to get an answer to many of the questions she’d thought to ask. Those she hadn’t asked had felt too personal – how do you politely ask someone if their father had locked them in a crypt for four thousand years?

Serana said she might have answers for them both once she reached her home, but Eres wondered.

She doubted that Serana’s father would be the only vampire present in that place. She doubted even more that such vampires, so ancient, would not have had anything to do with Molag Bal in the past. Could Serana’s family have been in some way related to the first vampire, Lamae? How long ago had that been?

After what seems almost like hours of strained silence, Serana takes a breath, and speaks.

“It seems like it hasn’t changed at all since I was here last,” she breathes, and her eyes travel up, up, up, until it seems almost that she looks at the sky instead of a home.

Eres turns her head to look, allowing the oars to rest, and tilts her head back. Back further. Her mouth opens.

“You didn’t tell me you lived in a castle,” she manages at last, spinning to face her. The boat rocks as it scrapes against sand and rocks at the shoreline.

Serana shrugs helplessly, climbing to her feet. “I didn’t want you think I was one of those girls.”

“By ‘those girls’, do you mean Princess? Should I start calling you ‘my lady’?”

“Do that and the next spike I throw at you won’t be so friendly.”

Eres’ surprised laugh is a full bodied one. She stumbles on her way out of the boat with it, and one of her feet plunges into the icy water near the shore. She gasps out a curse and lifts her soggy boot, feeling the cold all the way up to the top of her head. She’s halfway to using a tiny flame to dry out her boot when Serana turns and sees her balanced precariously on one leg.

Serana raises a brow, dubious. “How did you even manage to survive this long by yourself?”

“Very carefully.” Eres _swears_ she used to be more coordinated than this.

“If that’s what you call careful, I’d hate to see you reckless.”

Eres thinks of her fight with Molag Bal, and snorts. “I’m sure you would.” Her boot now blissfully dry and warm, she trudges up the shore to meet Serana near the bottom of the stonework bridge that leads to the portcullis of Serana’s _castle._

But Serana’s face falls suddenly as they approach the portcullis, and she turns to face Eres, coming to an abrupt halt just yards away from the gates. “Listen…”

Whatever half-jovial mood had been present just beforehand has evaporated completely. “What is it?”

“Before we go in there…” Serana’s hands find her hips, and she heaves out a great sigh.

“Are you feeling alright?”

Serana blinks at her, like she’s somehow surprised that Eres had asked. “Yes,” she answers slowly. “I think so. It’s just—I know the Dawnguard—your friends or whatever—I know they would want to kill everything in there if they had the chance. I’m hoping you can show a little more restraint.”

Eres raises a brow. “Fairly certain I’m outnumbered anyways, even if I wanted to. Actually,” she considers, “it may be a good idea for us to part here. Not the brightest of ideas for a mortal to go walking into a nest of vampires on a remote island without any backup.”

“Usually, I’d agree,” Serana nods. “But my father will want to know who brought me back here. They probably already know you’re here, actually,” as if to illustrate her point, Eres can hear a male voice calling Serana’s name from behind the gates, shouting for them to be opened to welcome the ‘Lady Serana’ home. “You can either meet him now, or have his men chasing you across half of Skyrim to deliver a proper ‘reward’.”

Eres’ face scrunches at the thought. A Vigilant, disguised as a Dawnguard, being chased around by a horde of vampires? That would be some story to tell.

“You make a good point.”

“They won’t hurt you. If nothing else, one thing my father _does_ have is a sense of honor.” Even so, Serana rolls her eyes. “You can blame the nobility for that.”

“Gods all bless the nobility and their honor,” Eres drawls, and she follows Serana with heavy footsteps across the rest of the bridge, past the strange doorman who eyes her hungrily but notably does not approach her – and into the giant castle that Serana called her home; Castle Volkihar.

The gates, at last, yawn open, and Eres follows a half-step behind Serana as the woman steps over the threshold and through the door into the castle.

The man scurries past them, yelling about how “Lady Serana has returned!”, and in the distance Eres can hear the murmuring of several voices past the entrance hall.

Serana glances at Eres, a wry little smirk curling at her lips as she quirks her eyebrows at her. “I guess I’m expected,” she says dryly, and moves ahead of her.

Eres’ own pace slows, her heart thundering in her ears. That was a _lot_ of voices she heard. And as she follows Serana further in, onto the landing that overlooks what appears to be a large dining hall that may have once been a court, and then down the short staircase, Eres can only think that were these vampires to attack her, she would stand little chance against them all – even with Dawnbreaker at her back.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Eres feels its thrum against her shoulders for the first time in a long while. Her steps falter, her brows coming together – Meridia’s sword had always been… _active_ in the presence of vampires. How was it, then, that it had never done so in the two full days she’d spent with Serana? Could Meridia have sensed Serana’s intentions?

More to that end, if the sword hadn’t reacted to Serana, but _did_ react to those vampires she called her family – what did that mean for Serana herself? If Meridia had passed judgment on Serana and deemed her worthy of escaping her so-called ‘cleansing light’, but _not_ her family – what intentions could these people have for the one vampire who Meridia, seemingly, did not want to kill on principle?

“My long lost daughter returns at last,” Eres hears, from a man who spreads his arms wide and thrusts out his chest as though he expects applause to follow his every word. He, unlike Serana, appears gaunt, with sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes that seem to shine more with lunacy than the typical unnatural glow known of his kind. “I trust you have my Elder Scroll?”

Eres nearly scowls at the man, but wipes her face clean.

“All these years, and that’s the first thing you ask me?” Serana mutters, moving toward him. “Yes,” she sighs, “I have the Scroll.”

Good, Eres thinks. She’d noticed where her father’s priorities seem to lie.

“Of course I’m delighted to see you, my daughter. Must I say the words aloud?”

 _Yes_ , Eres thinks, knowing exactly what type of father this man seemed to be. This one reminds her too much of her own father, too much of Altano – a man whose own interests outweighs that of any who surround him, even those of the family he pretends to hold so dear.

“Ah,” the man breathes, clasping his hands together with a smile that does not reach his blood-red eyes. “If only your traitor mother were here. I would let her watch this reunion before putting her head on a spike,” he spits.

Eres catches Serana’s gaze across the room, and sees the brief flash of annoyance that comes over the other woman’s face. But, in a fashion that is also too familiar to Eres, Serana too wipes her expression clean.

“Now, tell me,” the gaunt man turns his gaze to Eres then, and looks her up and down like a man sizing up his dinner. “Who is this stranger you have brought into our hall?”

“This is my _savior_ ,” Serana says pointedly, stepping closer to him. It is the first time she has challenged him, even subtly, since she’d entered the hall. “The one who freed me.”

The man glances at Serana, holds her gaze for a moment, and then nods – very, very slowly. As though he is reluctant. Eres does not need to wonder why. She can imagine that in a place like this, it must be especially rare for them to find fresh meat delivered on the doorstep.

“For my daughter’s safe return, you have my gratitude,” the man says primly, looking back at her. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“Eres,” she responds plainly.

He nods. “I am Harkon, Lord of this court. By now,” he starts, raising a dubious brow at her, “I am sure my daughter will have told you what we are.”

As though she needed to, Eres thinks – Serana may appear more mortal than most vampires she’s met, but she is still, undoubtedly, a vampire.

“Vampires.”

“Not _just_ vampires,” Harkon responds, almost appearing as though he is offended by the term. “We are among the oldest and most _powerful_ vampires in Skyrim. For centuries we have lived here, far from the cares of the world. All that ended when my _wife_ ,” he spits out the word like a curse, “betrayed me and stole away that which I valued most…”

Eres gets the distinct feeling that Harkon is _not_ talking about his precious daughter, but rather more likely – the scroll she wears upon her back. By the unimpressed expression on Serana’s face, Eres guesses that she, too, got the very same impression.

Eres looks around at the vampires that surround her—at Harkon, and his many minions. She counts seven just within the dining hall, staring at her intently. That doesn’t account for any that may be wandering the rest of the castle.

Excluding possibly Serana, every one of them poses a distinct danger.

“So what now?” Eres asks. She wants to leave. But turning her back on a room full of vampires might just be the last thing she ever does. Even if Serana were to jump in to defend her, what was the likelihood the two of them could face so many by themselves?

She doesn’t even know that Serana _would_ defend her against her family, though she doesn’t like to think that the woman wouldn’t.

“You _have_ done me a great service,” Harkon begins, reluctantly it seems. “And so it seems that you must be rewarded. There is but one gift I can give that is equal in value to the Elder Scroll and my daughter.”

Eres’ eyes narrow. Again, he had placed Serana second after that relic.

“I offer you my blood. Take it, and you will walk as a lion amongst sheep. Men will tremble at your approach, and you will never fear death again.”

Oh, she very much doubts that. Molag Bal would only be too thrilled were she to accept Harkon’s “gift” of vampirism. Eres hasn’t forgotten the dark promise he had made to her. 

But does she even have the opportunity to say no? Will he force it upon her, regardless?

Eres’ gaze once again drifts to Serana, standing somewhat behind her father – and out of his line of sight. When Serana catches her gaze, she gives the very subtlest of shakes of her head. The message is clear: _Don’t._

“And if I refuse this gift?” Eres asks, looking back at Harkon.

Harkon’s expression morphs into a grimace. “Then you will be as prey, as all mortals are. I will spare your life this once, but you will be banished from this hall. And should I or my brethren come across you again, we may not be so generous. Perhaps you still need convincing—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Eres holds up a hand. She’s read enough on Molag Bal and his so-called ‘gift’ to know exactly what Harkon might deem to show her, and she’s not all that keen to see it. “I refuse.”

Harkon’s eyes narrow, and he tilts his chin as he regards her coolly. “So be it,” he says, slowly. He still looks tempted, but he does retreat, taking a step backward. “Then you shall be prey, like all mortals. You are hereby banished from my home.”

He lifts his right hand, and Eres sees the dark curl of menacing, magical energy a moment before her vision goes dark. Just behind it, she could swear she saw Serana’s lips form a silent apology.

When she wakes again, Eres finds herself face-down in the snowy shore, ice-cold water lapping at her fingertips. Harkon – whatever spell he may have used – seemed to have dumped her just outside the castle, by the pier. And that damned rickety boat.

Eres sighs. “You could have at least put me on the mainland,” she mutters. But she can hardly voice a true complaint, after all – she had entered a nest of vampires in what might be one of the most remote locations in Skyrim, and lived to tell about it.

The only thing Eres can think of as she rows that precarious little dingy back to the mainland is the look on Isran’s face when she tells him what – or rather, _who_ – she found within Dimhollow Crypt. And that the ‘vampire menace’ he was so convinced of may be far bigger than either of them had realized.

Eres didn’t know what a host of vampires might be doing with an Elder Scroll, but it certainly wasn’t anything good.


	6. A New Order

ACT III  
CHAPTER VI  
“A NEW ORDER”

Eres pulls her scarf higher around her face until it covers her nose, and tightens it. The smell of flesh burning has never been a favorite for her, and the smell of decaying flesh was even worse. How was it that vampires could manage to blend in with humans so well some of the time, but when they died it was almost as though all of time caught up with them at once?

“How many?”

Isran lets out a sigh that sounds almost like a growl. “Too many. Twenty, maybe?” He shakes his head as he comes to stand beside her. Before them, one of multiple pyres licks at the darkened sky above them. “I don’t know what they thought they’d find here…”

“Maybe they meant to wipe you out before you could hunt them down.” Eres notices, with at least a small amount of satisfaction, that someone has finally thought to take an axe to the trees that stand close to the fort’s outer wall. Already one has been felled, and she can see Agmaer and Celann steadily working at the next.

The Dawnguard has never been particularly populous, being little more than a small militia, but those who remain at the fort seem determined to work through the night if it means they will be safer.

“Fat chance of that,” Isran scoffs. “Those crossbows came in handy. We got half of them before they reached us.”

“How many of us are hurt?”

“A few minor injuries, mostly. One or two might need some attention,” Isran admits, sighing again. “Nothing too bad. You’ve some magic, don’t you?”

“Some,” Eres nods. She peers out towards the camp just below the approach to the main fort. A couple of men have been laid on straw mats near the fire usually reserved for those taking guard watch. One of the men has his leg stretched out before him, a pained grimace on his face. “I can help, but I’ll need peace and quiet. They’ll need to be brought inside, anyhow.”

Isran hums a brief sound of affirmation. His sharp eyes move from one corner of the fort proper to the other – assessing whatever damage may have been done. “Idiots. Attacking us so boldly like this. What could they have hoped to gain? They’d never have gotten inside.”

“Turning a few, maybe,” Eres shrugs. She doesn’t know exactly what motivates vampires. “Maybe just feral.”

Isran’s lip curls. “I don’t think so. They’re getting bolder. Something big is happening, I can feel it.”

And there is the opening that Eres needed – although she is not looking forward to using it.

“Speaking of ‘big’,” she starts slowly, turning to meet his eyes. “We need to speak privately. About what I found in Dimhollow Crypt.”

Isran stares stolidly back at her for a long, strained moment. Then, with a sigh, “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

“You won’t.” Eres follows him inside the fort, holding the door open for a man who stumbles in after her, limping. She glances downward briefly, but she sees no obvious blood or disfigurement. He can wait a little longer for attention, if he needs it at all. He’s probably one of the lucky ones. When she looks up, the man catches her eye and waves his hand dismissively. He'll be alright without her.

“This way.” Ahead of her, Isran makes a hard right, and leads her up the spiral staircase up to the second floor, which Eres knows to house his own chambers, and access to the battlements.

Instead, Isran takes another right, and leads her right into a torture room.

Eres raises a brow. “You know I hate this room. It stinks.”

Isran turns to face her, crossing his arms, and shrugs carelessly. He does not smile. “You know I don’t care. No one comes here willingly, and so I know that we won’t be overheard. What did you find at Dimhollow? Out with it.”

Well, he’s not winning any awards for patience, is he?

“A woman.”

Isran’s brows raise briefly, then come down just as quickly, furrowing as his eyes narrow at her. “A woman,” he says slowly. “And yet you come here alone. Was this _woman_ a vampire?”

“Yes,” she answers. “She was. She was carrying an Elder Scroll.”

Isran’s jaw works. Eres hears his teeth grinding together in his mouth. He looks away from her, eyes flashing – it is the sight of a man trying to control his anger.

“And you let her get away.”

“I escorted her home.”

“You did _what_? Have you been bewitched, girl?”

“I’m a Vigilant, Isran,” she sighs out, tired. “I’ve hardly been bewitched.” Although she does admit, it certainly does sound like it. “She seemed to believe there was a deeper reason why the other vampires were searching for. She’d find out more if she went home. More importantly, _I’d_ find out where she’s from, and how badly we needed to worry.”

Isran looks back at her, and she can see the consternation written across his face. Something in him is starting to see her side of the story – why she had done what she’d done, even if he didn’t like it.

“I told you, I came here to figure out what was going on in Windhelm, not just to serve the Dawnguard. If there’s a sect of vampires who have access to an Elder Scroll, I want to know who they are and where I can find them.” She pointedly does not mention where Serana’s home was, however. Isran’s hatred of vampires makes him shortsighted. She could tell him, and he might order his men to march before she takes her next breath.

“And? What did you find out?”

“The patriarch of the family is a man named Harkon,” she tells him. “He seems to value the Scroll more than his daughter’s life – the woman I found in the crypt. Something about it is important to him, and to the others. Enough that they would lock one of their own in a sealed tomb for thousands of years.”

“But you didn’t get this scroll,” Isran points out. “You realized what they might do with it, and you let them go. You delivered it right to them—”

“I’m not an idiot, Isran. There were at least ten of them in the room that I’d been led into. And that castle was sizable. There’s no telling how many more were loitering around that I just didn’t see or hear. What should I have done, stolen the scroll and run for my life with a dozen or more vampires chasing me down?”

Isran scowls. “Do you at least have any idea what they _want_ with an Elder Scroll?”

“No idea,” she admits. “I only know that they’re powerful. My tutors spoke of them more in abstracts than anything else, but I know what one looks like.” As if she could mistake that gigantic thing on Serana’s back for anything else. “Whatever they might use it for, it’s not an artifact you want in the hands of someone who might misuse it.”

Isran lets out a long suffering sigh, and pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand. “I’m getting a migraine,” he mutters. “What of Tolan?”

“Dead. He went inside before I got there. They drained him.”

“At least he’s not turned, I suppose.” Isran shakes his head. “I knew something was going on, but an Elder Scroll—goes far beyond even my imagining. We’re going to need help.”

He probably should have realized that before, but Eres doesn’t say it aloud.

“The Vigilants up north are still recovering.” She refuses to involve them, anyhow. They’ve had enough death and misery for a lifetime. “They won’t be able to lend aid.”

“I imagine not,” Isran nods slowly. “There’s a letter for you, by the way. Forgot to mention.” She nods, and just for a moment, she feels lighter. She hopes that Gwyneth is alright. “There are a few people I know who could lend us a hand. Just have to convince them.”

He waves his hand for her to follow, and leads her back downstairs and across the hall into the map room – or rather, a corner of the fort with a long table that has a map of Skyrim stretched across it and held down at the edges with bottles of Nord mead. There are only perhaps six or seven little red flags placed about the map – the last known locations of Dawnguard patrols that Isran has sent out for recruitment, or protection.

“Here,” Isran circles his finger around an area that encompasses much of the Southwestern part of the Rift, stretching from just west of Riften to south of Ivarstead. “Fellow named Gunmar, beast tamer, big brute of a Nord. Hates the vampires as much as I do. He was working on training trolls to fight them, last I heard. Not a bad smith, either. Get him with us, have him start training those things, and we might have a leg up the next time a bunch of leeches decides to attack us.”

Isran shifts, stepping to the side, and then runs his finger down the length of a river near a mountain range just northeast of Markarth, and not so far from Dragon Bridge. “Other one’s Sorine Jurard—a Breton girl, whip-smart, good with tinkering. Weapons, especially. Last I heard, she was out here in the Reach, looking for some ruins. Convinced she was about to find the biggest Dwemer ruins yet. If we can get her to start working with our crossbow designs, make them stronger, faster—” Isran leans back, frowning at the map. “We need them.”

“It will take a long time for me to find both of them on my own.”

“That’s why I’m not sending you alone.” Eres almost opens her mouth to protest, but he holds up a hand. “I’ll send Agmaer after whichever one you don’t want to track down. Boy could use some field experience for once so he can stop moping around my damn fort.”

Eres almost laughs. Agmaer, if nothing else, is determined to make his place within the Dawnguard. He looks a right fitting man in the new armor he’s managed to get hold of.

“How long do I have?”

“How long do you think those vampires will wait?” Isran retorts.

Eres chews at the inside of her lip. “Agmaer isn’t ready for the Reach. There’s Forsworn out there. I’m at least somewhat familiar with the area.” Fellburg isn’t so far from the pass through the mountains that leads to Markarth, anyways. “They like to hide out in the hills and rocks. Ambushes, traps.”

She’s never necessarily walked into a Forsworn camp, per se, but she’s had enough run ins with stragglers of Forsworn parties to know the tactics. The brave ones used to hassle travelers on the northerly road from Fellburg.

“I’ll head for Sorine. I have something else I need to handle in the area on my way there, anyhow.” Isran raises a brow at her, arms crossed. “It won’t take long. I’ll find her, Isran.”

He nods, and after a moment, says, “I don’t doubt you will.” He seems almost as surprised to be saying it as she is to hear it. “Your girl, Gwyneth – the one at the Temple. She wrote to me, too. Told me a little of what happened up there.”

Eres’ can practically feel her expression shutter over, closing. “Did she?”

“Only to insist that I watch out for you,” Isran said quietly. “Because you had been watching out for everyone else, but had no one to do the same for you.” Eres blinks, taken aback. “She’s quite fond of you, it seems. Speaks of you more as a friend than a Keeper.”

Eres looks at the map, at the mountains penned sloppily east of Dawnstar, where she knows the Stuhn Ravine is nestled, and within that, the Temple – and Gwyneth.

“We were the only survivors. I suppose it made us close.” One of her hands drops to her belt, her fingers finding the soft, smooth shape of the tiny carved horn wrapped around the leather.

“Keep your friends close, girl. You never know when you’ll need them.” Isran murmurs quietly. “I made the mistake of pushing mine away, because I thought I knew better. In the end, I was right – but at what cost? So many of those I knew are dead now, because I couldn’t be bothered to stay for them.”

“You might’ve been dead, too, if you’d stayed,” Eres reminds him. “You’re doing what you can to make sure no one else dies. That’s all anyone can ask.”

“Mm,” Isran nods. “I hope Stendarr will see it as you do.”

Eres doesn’t doubt that He will. “I’ll get some supplies packed up and head out in the morning.”

“There’s a horse in the stables for you. Take the fast one. Chestnut mare. A bit stubborn, but she doesn’t spook easy. She’ll serve you well. The stableboy knows the one.”

Eres nods, and bids Isran farewell for the night. Tomorrow, she will ride for the West – for Fellburg, and Sorine Jurard beyond it.

During the winter, the southwestern pass through the mountains that stretches from Helgen to just south of Ivarstead are nigh impassable – the lack of regular travel, the difficult terrain, and the mountain snow that falls and collects into the crevices makes the pass too difficult and too dangerous to traverse during the winter months, and even through much of fall and early spring.

But, the spring season this year has been especially favorable, and so Eres risks it, rather than adding days to her travel by wrapping around the great mountain that houses High Hrothgar.

The horse Isran gave her, a stubborn, somewhat ornery mare the stableboy had called Sif, picked its way through the winding slopes of the pass with little difficulty.

With the advent of spring, much of the snow that usually buried the pass in white powder had melted and drained off into the rivers below, leaving just the finest coating of slush and mud that remained. It should have smelled of wet earth and the sharp tang of water runoff, but instead, a sickly, rotting stench reached Eres in her saddle, and soon enough Sif began to huff and pull at the reins, resisting her urging forward.

Eres sighs. She’s never been especially fond of horses, perhaps, but she knew that she could not force a horse who did not want to go – the reins would only make their mouths hard, and cause trouble down the line. And so she allows Sif to stop, brushing a hand down the side of her neck.

“ _Lymek_ ,” she murmurs. “Calm.” She remembers very little of the Bosmeri language, but that one is familiar to her.

Eres dismounts, and loosens her grip on Sif’s reins, testing. Sif shifts, huffing through her nose, the whites of her eyes showing. When Eres attempts to brush a comforting hand down her long face, the horse pulls away from her.

Eres frowns, turning her head to look at the path ahead. Even when she stands still, and focuses all of herself on listening and watching the landscape around her, she can not see nor hear any kind of disturbance that might explain Sif’s behavior.

Nothing, of course, except that rancid smell.

“Stay,” she says simply, not truly knowing whether Sif will listen, and she walks up the path alone.

The smell grows ever stronger the further she walks, and as soon as she rounds the bend and reveals the path beyond, Eres knows why.

There are more bodies than she can immediately count, all of them wet and bloated with decomposition. From looking at them, Eres cannot immediately tell how long they have been here. Has it been only days, or could perhaps these bodies been buried in the snow within the pass, only to thaw when the weather warmed?

There are overturned carts, the corpses of horses caught in the crossfire, and a worrying amount of arrows broken and splintered upon the ground.

Almost all of the corpses that Eres sees are dressed in the fine studded leathers of Imperial armor.

Eres looks up. Above her, the cliffs stretch high and jagged, but – if she were planning an ambush and didn’t mind a bit of a climb… That is where she would have set herself up. High in the cliffs, where people don’t often look. The archers could have fired upon those down below before they would have even known they were there. Any stragglers could have been finished off in the chaos, if they even managed to survive at all with so little cover from either side.

Poor bastards. They’d never had a chance.

Eres turns back, and it takes nearly an hour to coax Sif further into the pass. It takes longer still to traverse it while stepping around the bodies scattered across the ground, and the debris littering the area. What might have been a single hour’s worth of travel turns swiftly into several.

Even knowing what Helgen has become, Eres is glad to finally see its walls looming in the distance. She wisely decides to skirt around it once she sees the bloodied bodies mounted on pikes just outside the gates. Bandits, no doubt, and there is no easy vantage point to see within to know exactly how many are inside.

She spends nearly a full day in Riverwood – the delay of the pass had her arriving in the dead of night, and not waking till late afternoon. Luckily, she knows the area quite well, now, and has no qualms of setting off in the night.

From Riverwood past Lake Ilinalta, past Little Vivec on the water, and then further west still, abandoning the main road that would take her past the old Forsworn fort, Eres cuts through the hills to enter Fellburg from the south.

The first thing she saw were the towers—guard towers, wooden but strong, reaching up into the sky. Perhaps a good twenty or thirty feet tall, they overlooked the main approach to Fellburg on either side, and within each of them stood a singular guard, peering from one direction to the next.

Neither of them reacts outwardly to her presence beyond a simple glance, and their open-faced helmets make their impassive expressions plain to her eyes. They don’t appear to recognize her, and she doesn’t recognize them. She is not surprised—she had never met the guards that she sent back the funds to hire, and Yosef and Johanna have hired more still since then.

To the left of the approach sprawls the wide meadow that, from what she can see, has been mostly cleared of brush. The ground is tilled and sown, but without growth – she can only guess that Yosef has plans to expand what farmland he has already worked upon within the limits of her estate.

To the right, what had once been a collection of rockfall from the mountain above, surrounding a small lake where the runoff collected, they had built a circling deck about it that she could just see if she raised herself up in her saddle. It looked almost idyllic.

As she grew closer, she could hear the sounds of labor beyond – that of pickaxes striking hard rock, the shuffling _thwumthwumthwum_ of materials shifting and moving within their confines. Beyond that still, she could hear voices, many of them, many more of them than she remembered ever being in Fellburg before she left.

What had once been a barren dirt road with nothing more than the dilapidated Keep and a collection of tents outside it had expanded outward beyond even the walls she had placed before she left. A couple of houses had even been built along either side of the road, and up near the lake deck. One of them boasted a number of trinkets and odds and ends, and sitting just in front of it, on a folded rug, was a Khajiit who called out to her as she approached.

She greeted him calmly, though a bit confused – there are not many Khajiit in Skyrim who operate outside of their roaming caravans. She promises to return later to see his wares, and not only out of politeness.

The gates stand before her, another guard tower on either side, and they are laid wide open in the light of daytime. Just beyond, she can still see the tents laid at the right hand side, and on the other is what appears to be a small training camp, with an archery range and practice dummies made of wood and straw. Beside that, the forge she never got to see come to fruition has become quite the spectacle, and there is a small home attached she can only guess belongs to the smith and his boy.

There is not a true stable here, as there has never truly been need for one in Fellburg with only the carthorses to speak of, and so when she dismounts from the proud Sif, she hitches the horse near the training camp where there is grass nearby that she can graze upon.

“Hey,” calls a voice, and one she doesn’t recognize. When she looks up, it is one of the guards within their post, scowling down at her. “You can’t put your horse there. Leave ‘em outside.”

She scowls back at him. “This is my home. I’ll put her in your tent if I want to.”

His eyebrows raise, and he looks ready to curse at her when, suddenly,

“Eres?! Is that you?”

Yosef. Eres looks away from the idiot guard and to the man who approaches her now with a wide grin, arms wide. He’s shaved the little scruff of beard that used to set at his chin, and somehow looks younger than when Eres last saw him.

Eres accepts his offered hug willingly, feeling a particular lightness in her chest that she can’t name.

“Yosef, it’s good to see you.”

“Me?” Yosef pulls away, holding her at the shoulders. He’s still much, much taller than her. That hasn’t changed. But the health in his skin and new weight to his face and torso – he looks fitter, healthier, not so much the half-starved, lanky farmboy he’d been when they’d first met. “It’s good to see _you_. I thought you’d never come back home.”

 _I almost didn’t_ , she thinks, reminded suddenly of the Beacon, and all that happened there. She mentally shakes the thoughts from her head, refusing to allow herself to delve into those dark thoughts here and now when she is home, and safe, for the first time in what feels like decades.

“There was a lot of work to do with the Vigilants,” she says, by way of apology. “I couldn’t get away until now.”

Yosef nods, his smile tightening a bit at the edges. He seems to understand, if only minutely. “Come inside, why don’t you? You look like you’ve been on the road a while.”

“Is that your way of telling me I’m filthy?” She asks dryly.

Yosef laughs, and she’s glad to hear such lightness in him. “You are, a bit. You can grab a bath, and I’ll let Johanna know you’ll be staying for dinner.”

He stops abruptly at the door to the Keep, and turns to her, his face uncharacteristically serious, and his eyes somber. “You _are_ staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” and she makes a point to smile at him. To reassure him. “I plan to stay for at least a day or two.”

“Good.” His smile returns. “Johanna will be happy to see you. Julia, too,” and he leads her inside.

At dinner, Julia sits beside her and boasts about all the books she’s read, babbling of all of the things she’s learned in Eres’ absence. She asks after Eres’ favorite books, her favorite places to read, if she might send more of the ‘fun ones’ back home when she leaves again.

It has been perhaps just less than a year, but Julia has already grown a few inches, and Eres swears that her face looks sharper, her eyes wiser.

Little Neil is old enough to walk now, and hobbles about the rooms with abandon. He runs into Eres’ legs more than once, until she finds herself constantly checking underfoot for a rambunctious toddler with no sense of self preservation. Sometimes, when she enters the room, he immediately laughs and bolts away from her, as if playing a game of tag she couldn’t remember ever starting.

She chases him, anyways, because his laugh makes her heart feel lighter, every time she hears it.

He calls her “Rees,” because he cannot pronounce her full name – or perhaps simply doesn’t bother. She doesn’t mind it in the slightest. Not even when Julia starts calling her that, too, though she is more than old enough to know better.

Johanna is of course, thrilled to see her, and makes a point of dragging Eres to the study so that they can look over Fellburg’s books together. She’s not sure why Johanna would need it from her, of all people, but she feels as though the woman is seeking her approval.

Johanna shows her the evidence of the hard work they have put forward – the Khajiit salesman who pays a modest sum per month to set up his stall upon the road, believing it a prime location to entice passersby. The surplus from the very first harvest, which had been more productive than even Yosef had predicted, and the sale even of the fish they had found in the lake.

Johanna even tells her what seems like a tall tale of a Spriggan nearby who drives game towards their hunting grounds – so long as their hunters never cross into its territory.

“We’ve been saving what we can,” Johanna tells her, and points to a line in the ledger that she had marked simply with ‘Treasury’. It is a sum of well over ten thousand septims. “We should have more than enough to get through another winter, even if you can’t send any.”

Eres nods, impressed. “That’s good,” she says, and means it. She’s surprised – she hadn’t expected Fellburg to do so well in her absence. Not that she hadn’t had faith in Yosef and Johanna, but – she’d learned to expect the worst, with things like this.

Eres feels a hand upon her arm, gentle and urging. When she turns, Johanna is looking back at her, with soft, somber eyes, and wan smile.

“We don’t need you to work so hard anymore,” Johanna tells her quietly. “We’ve come a long way, now.”

Eres hears what Johanna doesn’t say, and a deep, wrenching ache builds in her chest. _You can come home, now_ , Eres hears.

Deep down, there is perhaps nothing that Eres wants more. To throw down her weapons and her armor, to turn away from the Vigilants and even the Dawnguard and just _stay_. To never leave again, to never have to throw herself headlong into danger again – to never come face to face with the kinds of evils no man should ever see again.

But beneath the ache of homesickness and her own mental exhaustion, her conscience still burns ever strong. How could she abandon Gwyneth and the Vigilants? Or the Dawnguard? How could she turn away from the conspiracy that she’s unearthed, when every day more and more people are put in danger by the growing boldness of the vampires?

It was not like Fellburg was unreachable. If the vampires continued to roam free, it would only be a matter of time before they came here. And guard or no guard, facing off a host of vampires without something like Dawnbreaker – what if none of them survived?

Eres says nothing, but she doesn’t have to. Johanna merely smiles, and squeezes gently at Eres’ arm.

“I understand,” Johanna says simply. “You have responsibilities, now—to them.”

“To you, too,” Eres reminds her. “I’m not fighting just for them.”

“No one can fight forever, Eres.”

“No,” she admits. “But when I get tired, I can come back here and rest.”

“If there’s anything we can do to ease your burden, you need only to let us know,” Johanna reminds her.

Eres takes a deep breath. She already feels lighter. “You already have.” 

Two days after arriving in Fellburg, Eres finally forces herself to leave. She fears that if she stayed any longer, she would never leave at all. Julia makes her promise to write her, and follows her all the way to the edge of the outer wall to see her off.

Two days after that, she finds Sorine Jurard in a camp following the Karth river northwest past Karthwasten and west of Dragonbridge. Isran’s information had been correct – Sorine had been researching just where he said she’d be.

On her way back to Fort Dawnguard with Sorine in tow, Eres pointedly avoids the shortcut that would follow the river southeast, and past Fellburg – she instead leads Sorine back to the main road, and at Rorikstead they cut across and through the great forest and plains outside of Whiterun eastward until they meet with the road again near the farms, and turn south and then east towards Helgen and the same treacherous pass through the mountains she’d taken before.

She avoids Fellburg like a plague, if only because she fears its comfort will draw her in again until she abandons the duties she holds so close to her chest.

Fellburg is home; it is warm, and safe, and assuring in its strength and everlasting fortitude. It is far too tempting to hide within the walls of the Keep for the rest of her days, until the Vigilants and Dawnguard both give up hope for her return. Until the world itself collapses around it, Eres could remain.

The Nords had their Sovngarde; their paradise where there was no pain, no maladies, nothing but endless feasts and contests of prowess. The Bosmer had their return to form, the delicate balance, the peace of returning to that whence you came.

For Eres, there is Fellburg, and she wants for nothing more.


	7. Prophet

ACT III  
CHAPTER VII  
“PROPHET”

Serana waits impatiently while the man—Isran—does his theatrics on the balcony a few rooms away. Being the leader of the Dawnguard and all, Serana hadn’t expected him to be pleasant. Still, everything he does seems to irritate her, and vice versa.

When she’d come to him explaining that she needed to see Eres, she hadn’t expected hospitality, necessarily, but she also hadn’t expected him to keep her locked up in an old torture room. One that, apparently, they’d never felt the need to clean. The smell of old, stale blood isn’t great for her appetite.

“Meanwhile, we can get down to the bottom of why a vampire showed up here looking for _you_. Let’s go have a little chat with it, shall we?” She can hear Isran growling, just before she hears his footsteps stomping down the hallway. Only part of that can be attributed to his armor—he seems like the kind of man who likes to take up space just because he can. Typical.

It’s only been a few weeks, maybe, but Eres looks different from the last time Serana saw her. Is it possible she looks somehow older, or is it just how tired she seems to be?

“This vampire showed up while you were way. I’m guessing it’s the one you found in Dimhollow Crypt.” Isran’s voice is tinted with disdain and resentment, but Eres just looks between them. She does look surprised to see Serana, but the emotion is muted beneath her exhaustion—and the exasperation she barely manages to hide towards Isran. “Says it’s got something really important to say to you. So let’s hear it.”

Serana rolls her eyes at him, and directs her attention to Eres instead. “I bet you weren’t expecting to see me again.”

“What are you doing here?” Eres asks, frowning at her. Serana tries not to feel offended that she doesn’t seem particularly thrilled to see her.

“I’d really rather not be here either, trust me, but I need to talk to you. It’s important. So please just listen to me before your— _friend_ , here loses his patience.” Isran scoffs next to her. “It’s—well, it’s about me. And the scroll.”

Eres crosses her arms over her chest, but she nods, and in her eyes, Serana sees intrigue. Good. She’s listening.

“Go on.”

“It’s about the reason I was down there…and why I had the scroll to begin with. It all comes back to my father. I’m guessing you figured this part out already but, my father’s not exactly a good person. Even by vampire standards. He wasn’t always like that, though. There was a…turn. He stumbled upon this obscure prophecy and got lost in it.”

“What sort of prophecy?”

Serana sighs as she explains, knowing how ridiculous it all sounds. Her father’s obsession with vampires ruling Tamriel sounded even more insane coming from her own mouth as it had coming from him. To her credit, Eres doesn’t look at Serana like she has a second head, just listens quietly and nods at appropriate moments.

“Alright, you’ve heard what it has to say,” and Serana’s eyes narrow at his insistence at treating her like a thing rather than an actual person. “Now give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill this bloodsucking fiend right now.”

Eres frowns. Maybe Serana’s just imagining it, but it seems like she isn’t that open to Isran’s tone, either. “Because we’re going to need her help.”

“Why? Because of that story about the prophecy? About some vampire trying to put the sun out? You actually believe that?”

Eres shrugs. “Why else would she put her life at risk just to find me here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s got a death wish. Maybe it’s just insane. I don’t really care.”

Eres closes her eyes and sighs heavily. “Set your hatred aside for a moment, Isran. Try to see the bigger picture here. Even if what she says _isn’t_ true, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Would you rather us ignore it on the off chance it’s just a tall tale, only for it to blow up in our faces later?”

For a long moment, Isran is silent, glaring at her. “Fine,” he growls finally, sounding anything but happy about it. “You’d better know what you’re doing. It can stay—for now. But if it so much as looks at someone the wrong way, I’ll hold you responsible. Got it?” And Isran turns to Serana then. “You hear me? Don’t feel like you’re a guest here, because you’re not. You’re an asset. A resource. In the meantime, don’t make me regret my sudden outburst of tolerance and generosity. Because if you do, your friend here is going to pay for it.”

Serana sneers at him, pushing down a sudden burst of irritation at Isran’s thinly veiled threat. “Thank you for your kindness. I’ll remember that next time I’m feeling hungry.”

For an instant, Serana almost regrets saying it—but she sees a twitch of Eres’s lips and a spark of amusement in her eyes and it’s worth it. Isran scoffs at the words himself, marching out of the room in a huff.

“So,” Serana starts, once the man is out of earshot.

When she looks back at Eres, the girl is smirking. “He’s going to remember that.”

“I hope he does,” Serana says tersely. “He’s an ass.”

“I don’t think he’d taste good,” Eres shrugs. She doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that Serana had essentially threatened to kill her leader. “You brought the scroll with you.”

“You noticed,” Serana couldn’t see how she’d miss it. It was rather conspicuous. “It might have something we could use to fight against this prophecy—if either of us could actually read it, that is.”

“Well, _we_ can’t,” Eres mutters. “But a Moth Priest could.”

“Small problem,” Serana points out. “The Moth Priests are all in Cyrodiil.”

“Actually,” Eres’ frown shifts into something resembling a small, satisfied smile. “I think I heard something about one being in Skyrim for some reason,” Eres muses. “Don’t know where, though.”

“I’m sure we could ask around. The College might know something.”

“Or carriage drivers and innkeepers,” Eres offers. “They tend to know just about everything that happens in Skyrim. Word gets around fast with them.”

“So we have a plan,” Serana smiles a little. She’d been unsure about coming to the Dawnguard in the first place. The fact that her gamble actually seemed to have worked out for the better was as surprising for her as it likely was to anyone else.

“If you can call it that,” Eres shrugs again. “More like a wild goose chase than anything else.”

“Nothing like running all over the province to find a Moth Priest.”

“Might make a good story,” Eres says.

“Doesn’t sound like something I’d like to read,” Serana retorts, shaking her head.

“No? Not interested in ‘The Great Moth Priest Hunt’?”

“Not exactly my type of book.”

“Well, maybe we have something here that might catch your interest a little more.” Eres turns, and starts heading out of the room. Serana follows her down the stairs to the first floor, then through a large archway that leads to the saddest excuse for a living space Serana’s ever seen. There’s a long wooden table littered with used mugs and somewhat-clean plates and cutlery, and a number of cots pushed up against the wall.

Serana had seen it all before, during her time waiting for Eres to return from—wherever she was, exactly—but she’d thought that Eres would have a private room or something to that effect.

“I feel like I haven’t slept in days,” Eres continues, sighing. She grabs a piece of bread that’s lying abandoned on a plate and eats it almost in one mouthful. By the sound of it, Serana doesn’t even think it was fresh. Eres doesn’t seem to notice, or at least doesn’t show it.

Serana watches her drop her bag next to a random cot and start to take off her armor. “I suppose this means we’re staying here for the night,” Serana assumes.

“I don’t think I could make it to Riften,” Eres mumbles. She’s already halfway to lying down, and probably half asleep to boot. Without her armor on, she looks smaller, somehow, and her exhaustion is even more apparent. “There should be some books around here somewhere.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Serana says, already thinking about the bookshelf she’d discovered a couple of days ago. It wasn’t exactly full to the brim, but Serana had been asleep for a long time. She hadn’t read most of the books she’d seen there, but she’d been so worried about Eres and how she’d respond to her presence that she’d never gotten the chance to look through them. “I’m sure I can find something to occupy myself with.”

“Don’t bite anyone,” Eres mumbles.

Serana finds herself chuckling. “No promises.”

Serana _doesn’t_ bite anyone, as it turns out, though she was tempted to throw an ice spike at the irritating blonde boy who kept trying to wake Eres early to speak to her. She’d never bothered to learn his name or what he wanted, but he seemed especially fixated on the girl and Serana’s still not sure why it bothered her so much.

Now that they’re on the road, Serana feels better. Between that blonde annoyance and the Dawnguard breathing down her neck, the open air of the roads feels much less oppressive. Even with the rolling clouds overhead and the promise of a storm threatening to slow their progress, Serana feels…content, somehow.

She knows she should feel like they’re racing against time, what with her father and the prophecy and trying to find this stupid Moth Priest—but, well. They’ll get there when they get there.

“He’s got days ahead of us.” Serana does peer at the sky, now, because it’s only midday and the sky is darkening enough to make it look like dusk. Whenever the rain does break through the clouds, it’s going to be messy. “Do you think we’ll catch up with him in time?”

“As long as your father’s people aren’t chasing him down, too, yeah.” Eres glances at her, sees her, and then glances up at the sky herself. “The scholarly types tend to move slow, with all their guards and belongings they haul with them everywhere. Carriage would have helped, though,” Eres mutters, and she sounds a bit sour.

Serana agrees. The carriage driver who’d told them the Moth Priest was headed towards Dragon Bridge had refused to take them there, saying it wasn’t one of his stops, and if he wouldn’t even take a priest, why would he take them? Not even bribery had worked, even with the frankly impressive amount of gold Eres apparently hauled around with her. And so they’d started to walk, and had been walking all day.

“We should look for some shelter,” Serana suggests. “This storm is going to drop on us at any second, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be pretty.”

“Don’t like the rain either, do you?” Eres muses, but she does start to look around to either side of the road. “Ivarstead is still a few hours west of here.”

Serana glances at the clouds again. “I don’t think we’re going to make it a few hours. Unless you’d like to be caught out in the storm, that is.”

Eres shakes her head. “We’ll start looking for a cave or something nearby. I have a tent with me, but fur and rain don’t mix well.”

Eres seems to know her way around Skyrim a lot better than Serana does, which isn’t too surprising given how long it’s been since she’s been locked away. Still, the girl seems to know exactly where to find a convenient cave for them to take shelter in, and not a moment after she points it out does the sky open up on them.

The two of them break into a run to reach the cave before they’re drenched to the bone, but the rain is heavy enough that their clothes are soaked through in seconds. Once they’re inside the two of them just stand silently, dripping, and look at each other.

“I hate Skyrim weather,” Serana groans, and pulls her hood back. What feels like a torrent of cold water slides down her back as she does.

“You look like a drowned cat,” Eres starts to laugh.

“Right back at you,” Serana retorts, smirking despite herself. She’s horribly uncomfortable and wishing she wasn’t here right now, but she has to admit that the sight of Eres making an actual puddle is hilarious. She’s sure she doesn’t look much better.

“Looks like someone else camped here not too long ago.” Eres kneels down by a burned-out campfire, prodding it with a dagger. The ash and embers resettle, revealing a few, blessedly dry logs that hadn’t quite burned all the way through.

“Thank the Divines for small favors,” Serana watches Eres light the logs with a small spark of fire from her hand. “Just enough to get by?”

Eres glances up at her. “Just enough,” and the fire lights in a sudden blaze, drawing shadows upon the wall. “It takes a lot of concentration for me to do even things like this. I’d be asking for death if I ever tried it in the middle of a fight.”

“Well, not everyone’s suited for magic.” Serana shrugs, grimaces, and decides to take off the outermost layers of her armor. “Still, it’s obviously useful enough for you.”

“I know some things here and there. They come in handy, but I’m a lot better with more practical magic than anything flashy,” Eres says, and she takes Serana’s lead and starts to strip her armor off, too, except she goes a step further and strips down to her breast-bindings and a pair of fitted dark shorts she wears as underwear. She sets the rest of her clothes close enough to the fire to dry off. 

“You’re not shy at all, are you?”

“We’re both women,” Eres shrugs. “What does it matter?”

Serana has no reason to tell her that even in her home, there isn’t anyone she would feel comfortable undressing around. She supposes that comes with the territory, when those you call family all worship a being like Molag Bal.

The storm lasts for hours, and too often, Serana finds her gaze drifting to Eres’ form across the fire. While Serana’s own skin is smooth and almost entirely unblemished, Eres’ body is marked with scars.

They are not _everywhere_ , per se, but there are enough of them that Serana knows that she must have had a hard life, and escaped death more than once.

On her back, Serana can just see the edges of a whitened, old scar that stretches down from her neck and almost seems to splash across her shoulder blades. The edges are not raised as they might be with a deeper wound, or a burn, but rather almost as though her skin was simply seared a lighter color in some places.

“What happened?” Serana asks, curious.

“Hm?” Eres looks at her, half distracted – her robes are in her hands, and she seems to be testing to see if they’ve dried yet.

“Your back,” Serana clarifies, and she gestures towards her own shoulder, and then behind it. “The scar there. How did it happen?”

Serana can almost see the walls close around her as Eres’ expression tightens. Whatever good humor she’d had before of their situation had vanished in an instant.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Eres mutters, and she shrugs on the first layer of her robes, turning away from her. “No offense.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Serana fumbles, feeling uncharacteristically awkward all of a sudden. “I shouldn’t have asked. We barely know each other.” It’d been insensitive of her to just blurt out a question like that, anyways. Would she have liked it if Eres had done the same to her? “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Eres says, but it doesn’t seem like it is. She stands, and finishes dressing almost mechanically. “The storm is letting up. We should get going.”

“Of course,” Serana pulls on her own armor and re-fastens her cloak. “Do you think we can make it to Ivarstead tonight?”

“Probably,” Eres leans over to peer out of the mouth of the cave, up at the slowly darkening sky. Then she looks back at Serana, frowning again. “I don’t know how great an idea it is for us to go walking into a town, though.”

Serana lifts her hood, and pulls it low over her eyes. “As long as they don’t look too closely, we should be fine.” She hadn’t spent her time away twiddling her thumbs, after all. She waves a hand in front of her eyes, allowing her mana to spread across them.

Eres blinks, eyebrow raising. “Neat trick,” she says, and Serana is glad to hear that the steel in her voice from before has receded. “Were your eyes green before?”

Serana shrugs. “I suppose. I don’t remember. It’s been a while.”

Eres smirks back at her, and Serana finds herself returning it with her own little grin. “Just a while.”

“Just a while,” Serana replies, cheeky.

Fellburg is not far from the main road westward past Falkreath, and up to Solitude, but Eres doesn’t take Serana there. She doesn’t take Serana anywhere that she might be recognized as vampire, avoiding villages and towns where she can. Even with Serana’s gift for illusory magic, Eres errs on the side of caution, and they instead make camp each night rather than finding an inn to spend the night in.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust Serana around people—if Serana had been controlled enough to not jump at the chance to feed from Eres when she’d been imprisoned for so long, Eres trusted her to control herself around others now, too. She didn’t trust _people_ around Serana.

It would only take one person screaming bloody murder before they’d have a much bigger problem than trying to track down a Moth Priest.

Eres assumes that Serana feeds, sometimes, though she’s not yet seen it herself. Every now and then, though, Serana will vanish from her side for a bit, only to return later looking a bit more refreshed than she had when she left.

The first time Serana disappears, Eres stands in one spot and waits until she returns. After a time, Eres learns to trust that Serana will find her one way or another, and she continues her trek alone until the woman reappears at her side.

As they near Dragon Bridge, however, Serana remains next to her, eyes alert and body tense. Eres has little time to wonder why when Serana speaks:

“I smell blood,” Serana says quietly, her eyes narrowing as she peers further up the road.

Eres follows her gaze, but she can see nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing but the cobbled stone of the road before them, and the wild grass and hills on either side. In the distance, she knows there should be a mill, from previous trips in this direction, but she can’t yet see it on the horizon. She smells nothing, either, but she is not so surprised for that – vampires, she assumes, must have a much keener sense of smell than any mortal could have.

“Is it close?”

“Close enough,” Serana murmurs. She doesn’t look to either side as though she’s searching for an enemy, so Eres does not reach for her bow. “If I can smell it from this distance, though—”

“It’s probably fresh,” Eres finishes. She breaks into a jog, and Serana wordlessly joins her.

They see the overturned cart first. Then the dead horses. And then the corpses.

Eres slows, huffing. “Well, shit. Any of these guys look like a Moth Priest to you?”

“No,” Serana says, crouching by one of the bodies. “But this one—I recognize him. He’s one of my father’s men.”

Eres looks at the man, but she doesn’t recognize his face from those she can remember seeing in the castle. Serana, despite seemingly knowing the man, doesn’t seem terribly affected by his untimely death.

“They need that priest for the scroll. They wouldn’t kill him.” Eres crouches, too, beside one of the guard’s bodies, and presses her fingers against his neck. Not to check for a pulse, but rather to feel what heat might remain in his body. He is not warm, but not ice cold, either. And the blood upon the ground is still wet. “This couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours ago, if that.”

“They have to be nearby,” Serana agrees.

“Don’t suppose you can track with that nose of yours?”

Serana favors her with a dry look, seeming to only barely resist the urge to roll her eyes. “Afraid not,” she drawls. “But I don’t think we’ll need it. Look there. Drag marks.”

Eres follows her gaze, noting the smear of blood upon the ground, the broken twigs and disturbed grasses leading away from the cart and up a nearby hill. “Not doing a very good job of hiding it, are they?”

“I don’t think my father’s men are that worried about a couple of city guards,” Serana mutters. “This area doesn’t seem heavily patrolled, anyways.”

“There’s just a mill here; it wouldn’t be.” Eres reaches for her bow all the same. “Still wouldn’t say no to some backup. We don’t know how many there are.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Serana says, and Eres shudders at the sound of a guttural, desperate gasp of air just a few feet away.

One of the corpses upon the ground rolls over and lurches to its feet. Eres avoids looking it in the eyes, and instead turns her gaze to Serana.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate it when you do that?”

“Only a few dozen times,” Serana retorts. “But if they get a jump on us, I’d rather them kill someone who’s already dead than kill you. I just so happen to still need you.”

“Oh, I feel _so_ special,” Eres drones, turning away from the creepy, lumbering corpse, and marches briskly for the hill. “There’s a cave,” she points out. “I’d bet they’re in there.”

Serana takes one look at the amount of blood splattered around the entrance and raises a single brow. “Gee, what gave you that idea?”

“Alright, smartass.” Eres inches closer to the mouth of the cave, and peers inside. It is absolutely, utterly pitch dark inside. “You keep that thing away from me or so help me…”

“That happened _once_ ,” Serana protests, but Eres doesn’t miss the mirth dancing in her eyes.

Approaching stealthily would have been easier in the darkness of the cave interior, were it not for the Death Hounds. Eres takes a total of five steps into the pitch dark of the cave before she hears a low, warning growl – and three pairs of glowing red eyes appear in the distance, large shadowed heads swinging towards them.

Eres groans, and pulls out her bow. She _hates_ those things.

A spike of ice as big as one of her arms flies past her ear close enough that she can feel the chill it leaves in the air against her skin. In the distance, she hears a pained, high-pitched yelp, and one of the pairs of eyes winks out in the darkness.

“Nice shot.” Eres nocks an arrow, holding her bow low in front of her. It’s too dark within the cave for her to see clearly enough to aim at something so far away.

“On your left,” Serana warns, only a moment before the shambling corpse lurches past her and down the stairs with strange, jerky movements, moaning piteously as it goes.

In the next moment, with the little bit of light that pours in from the outside, Eres sees the dark forms of the other two hounds leap from the shadows to bring the corpse to the ground at once.

Eres fires one arrow, and then swiftly a second. Another spike flies past her shoulder, and the second hound is fairly thrown off the poor corpse on the ground and pinned to the cave wall with the spear of ice. It writhes, whining low in its mouth, and then falls still.

Eres hears voices in the distance, and sighs. “Looks like they know we’re here.” She lifts a hand, and after a short moment of concentration, a singular globule of radiant light appears in her palm, floats up above her head, and tethers itself to her person. Everything within a twenty-foot radius is bathed in an ethereal glow.

“Prepare yourself,” Serana mutters low, stepping over the corpse on the ground before them. One of the Death Hounds had ripped out its throat before it died, and the soul within was now truly at rest.

Eres understood little of how necromancy worked, but she knew that Serana could not raise the same corpse twice.

As if on cue, the Death Hound that Eres had killed with an arrow to its chest and neck each jerked violently, shuddered, and clambered clumsily to its feet. Its eyes glow a bright white instead of red, and a deep growl rumbles in its chest.

The hound looks at Eres.

“Sic ‘em, boy.”

Despite the clamor of the vampires they can hear making their way out of the small fort built within the confines of the cave, Eres hears Serana snort.

“It really doesn’t work that way,” she says. Even still, she points, and the hound lurches ahead of them with a somewhat lopsided, puppet-like lope.

“Close enough,” Eres shrugs. She follows the hound, cheering silently when it pounces upon the first vampire it sees. With a single snap of its powerful jaws, the man goes utterly limp and lifeless beneath it.

“What’s that hum?” Eres asks, in the breath between drawing arrows. If there’s one thing she hates about fighting vampires, it’s that one arrow is never enough to down one, even with impeccable aim. Even a silver-tipped arrow can only do so much damage. She finally drops one of the approaching vampires with the third arrow she fires at him, that pierces right above his sternum. He chokes, sputters, and drops to the ground.

“Ward, sounds like,” and Serana grunts. Eres turns to look at her, and then stumbles backwards to avoid the path of a spike as big as she is flying past to bowl over the three vampires who come barreling out of the fort entrance. One of them screams as he’s hit, thrown backward, and Eres hears a splash as he plummets into the underwater stream just below.

“Ward?” Eres manages, then curses violently—one of the thralls managed to duck out of the way, and now was barreling for her at full speed. She drops her bow at once, and reaches for Dawnbreaker. “Look away,” she warns, naught but an instant before Dawnbreaker sings from its sheath.

“Son of a—” Serana’s curse tells Eres that she hadn’t looked away quite fast enough, but Eres swings the blade all the same, cleaving the thrall in two through his torso. The sickly smell of burning flesh reaches her a moment later, and what sounds like the crackling of burnt skin.

The third and last vampire pauses, coming to a stop a few yards from her. He looks warily at her sword, and at the still-burning corpse of the thrall at her feet.

Eres takes a step toward him. He steps back, drops his dagger, and throws his hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender. Eres opens her mouth, legitimately stunned for a moment – but before the words can leave her mouth, she hears the all-too-familiar _shwickk!_ Of Serana’s spell but an instant before the spike embeds itself in the man’s chest. He drops to his knees, and then topples sideways into the stream like the first.

“He surrendered,” Eres frowns.

“Listen,” Serana squints at her from a safe distance away, “if he’d gotten away from here, he’d have just gone back to report everything to my father. I don’t like it either.”

From the sound of Serana’s voice, Eres knows it to be true. She forgets that this woman probably knows most of her father’s men personally. Even if Serana hadn’t been particularly close to any of them, it must be difficult to be in her position.

Eres nods wordlessly, and sheathes Dawnbreaker once more. Serana sighs with relief, and closes the distance between them. “I thought the sun didn’t bother you.”

“The sun doesn’t, most of the time,” Serana mutters, “ _that_ _thing_ does. It’s so bright. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“Probably because I’m not a vampire.” Eres picks up her bow, and looks it over in the mage-light. She’d tossed it down in a hurry, but it seemed undamaged. “I did tell you to look away.”

“I was a little preoccupied.” Serana steps over the bodies they’d felled, and leads the way into the ruined fortress. Above them, now, they can see the shimmering walls of a large ward up above.

Eres follows behind her.

As they crest the top of the stairs and onto the main landing, Eres can see the huddled figure of a man in drab grey robes, kneeling within the center of the ward. In front of it is a man in armor remarkably similar to Serana’s own.

The noise of the ward is immense, enough that it drowns out almost all other sound. The vampire sees them, his mouth dropping open for a moment.

“Lady Serana,” he breathes, blinking owlishly. Eres almost feels bad for him, watching Serana approach him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were—”

Serana drives her dagger into his neck, and separates his head from his body.

When it’s done, she sighs, and tucks her dagger back into the little sheath at her waist. “I always hated that guy,” she mutters darkly.

With a sputter, the shimmering walls of the ward shift, flicker, and then drop all at once. The man within it looks up at them, dazed.

“He look like a Moth Priest to you?” Eres asks.

Serana doesn’t get the time to answer. The priest lurches to his feet in an all-too-familiar way.

“Oh, fuck,” Eres groans. “Is he dead?” He starts toward her, one step at a time—and then jolts suddenly into a sprint, barreling towards her. More out of instinct than anything else, Eres brings up the hand holding her bow and swings it at his head.

He drops like a stone.

“Well, if he was, I think you killed him. Again.” Serana says, at her most dry, leveling her with a glance.

Eres sends her a glare of her own. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Serana admits. She crouches by the man, and rolls him over gently. “He’s just unconscious. Looks like they enthralled him.”

“Is it permanent?”

“No,” Serana answers. “It should fade after a time, now that his master’s dead. It might take a few days for it to fade completely, but he should at least be somewhat lucid by the time he wakes up again.” Serana says this even as she pulls a small vial from the little satchel at her waist, and allows a few drops of the liquid to fall between his parted lips.

“What is that?” Eres prods, suspicious, eyes narrowed.

“A sleeping draught. It’ll keep him out for now, until we’re safe.”

Eres’ eyes narrow further. “You haven’t used that on me, have you?”

Serana rolls her eyes so hard Eres fears they just might fall out of her head. “Oh, yes,” she drones, “every night I put a few drops into your food and feed from your unconscious body. The cat’s out the bag now.”

Eres contemplates drawing Dawnbreaker again, if only to shut her up. “Why else would a vampire have a sleeping draught?”

“Maybe because someone I know has trouble sleeping, and I thought I might offer it one day if it got too bad.” Serana lifts the priest up, and throws him easily over one shoulder. The effortless manner in which she carries him suggests that she’s far stronger than she appears. “Are you ever going to trust me?”

Eres feels something a lot like guilt gnawing at her insides, but she can’t help what leaves her mouth next.

“Are _you_?”

Serana meets her gaze, and the air between them feels suddenly heavy. “I do trust you,” she says quietly. “There are just some things I can’t talk about yet.”

Eres thinks of all the things Serana doesn’t know about her, either – like the fact that she’s a Vigilant. That she’s had her own encounter with Molag Bal, and is all too familiar with the kind of people who worship him.

“I understand,” she says, instead of all the other things she could have said. “I feel the same way.”

“Oh, what tangled webs we weave,” Serana intones, much more lightly than Eres had expected. “Let’s get going. This guy isn’t exactly light. I swear he’s got stones in his robes.”

“I don’t think those are stones.”

“Oh, _ew_ , Eres—I meant he’s _heavy_.”

“So did I,” but Eres is grinning, and she’s definitely not fooling anyone. “I meant he’s fat.”

“Sure,” Serana drawls. “I believe you. If you want me to trust you, the first thing you have to do is stop lying.”

Eres laughs, following Serana out of the cave, and she wonders how it came to be so easy to be around someone—or some _thing_ , rather—that she should have hated.

With Serana ahead of her, Eres reaches up with her hand, and presses her fingers gently against the hilt of Dawnbreaker at her back. It is, as it has always been around Serana, curiously and utterly silent. Serana was the only vampire whose flesh it did not yearn to rend.

What could it mean, that Meridia’s own blade has seemingly passed judgment upon Serana, and deemed her worthy of life? Sometimes, Eres wished she could speak with the Gods—to ask them what they wished of her, what their intentions were. Why none of them seemed to take issue with Serana’s presence, despite her nature.

Perhaps the Gods felt as Eres did. Perhaps they could sense what Eres sensed in her, too.

Whatever the case, Eres is glad for it. If her Gods asked her to kill Serana, she is no longer sure that she could.


	8. Seeking Disclosure: I

ACT III  
CHAPTER VIII  
“SEEKING DISCLOSURE”

By the time they arrive at Fort Dawnguard with Dexion in tow, Eres is more than ready to dump him in the ice-cold lake near the entrance. Dexion, once recovered from his bout with near-enthrallment by Harkon’s minions, had taken to asking both she and Serana increasingly invasive questions under the guise of scholarly curiosity.

If she’d had to spend another day with the man, she might have gagged him. Isran takes one glance at her face when she walks into his so-called map room, and looks like he’s trying to hold back a snort of laughter.

Eres glares at him. “We found him.”

“So I see,” Isran straightens from his position bent over the map, crossing his arms. He’s still got just the ghost of a smirk on his face. “Has he read the Scroll yet?”

“Not yet.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Serana distance herself from Dexion, taking a position in a shadowed corner of the room. He looks as though he might even follow her for a moment, but the effect of her bright red eyes in the dim lighting seems to have dissuaded him. One has to commend her patience. “He said he needed to prepare first.”

Isran raises a brow, and looks at the man. “What do you need?”

“Quiet,” Dexion answers. “Peace and quiet, and a dark room, if possible. The Scroll strains the eyes.” He stares at it almost hungrily from across the room.

“I might have a place like that.”

Most of Fort Dawnguard is dimly lit, with only torches and oil lanterns to light the way. Even so, Isran beckons them to follow as he leads them down a corridor and into an unused room.

“I know these aren’t the accommodations a man such as yourself may be used to,” Isran says, “but it’s all we’ve got. We don’t have time to waste.” He cuts his eyes at Serana, and the woman wordlessly removes the scroll from her back.

Dexion lurches for it, taking it eagerly into his hands. For him, Eres feels, this is more of an exciting adventure than a life-or-death situation. This was the purpose he had dedicated his life to as a Moth Priest, and now he would fulfill it.

Eres steps back to stand beside Serana as the man unlatches the golden case of the scroll, and begins to open it. Eres is tempted to go to him and lean over his shoulder, attempt to see what he sees – but there’s likely a reason why Moth Priests such as Dexion spend their whole lives training to read the Scrolls, and she’s not keen to find out why. Who knows what effect the Scroll might have on the uninitiated?

“If everyone will please be quiet, I must concentrate,” Dexion glances up at them all briefly as he pulls the scroll open to its complete length, and then turns his eyes upon it.

For a long, stale moment, there is nothing but silence, and the sound of their own breathing. Eres glances over at Serana, and the woman shrugs helplessly. Even Isran seems at a loss.

Then, “I see a vision before me…” Dexion begins. Eres straightens. Though Dexion’s eyes remain open, they are wide and unseeing, clouded over as though he peers into a great distance that none of them can hope to see. “The image of a great bow. I know this weapon. It is Auriel’s Bow!”

Eres’ brows knit together. Auriel? Why did that name sound so familiar? She knew that Auriel was merely another name for Akatosh – but there was something else about that name that sounded familiar…

“Now a voice whispers, saying, _‘Among the night’s children, a Dread Lord will rise._ ’” The room feels suddenly cold. Could this be another machination of Molag Bal? “In an age of strife, when dragons return to the realm of men, darkness will mingle with light, and the night and day will be as one.”

“The voice fades, and the words begin to shimmer and distort… but there is more here. The secret of the bow’s power is written elsewhere. I think there is more to the prophecy, recorded in other scrolls. Yes…” Dexion nods to himself. “I see them now. Once contains the ancient secrets of the dragons, and the other speaks of the potency of ancient blood.”

Suddenly, Dexion sags, and it seems as if even the weight of the scroll is too much for him to carry. Serana steps forward and retrieves it from his weakened fingers before he can manage to drop it onto the floor. In its absence, the man brings a hand to his face, pressing his fingers over his eyes.

“My vision darkens, and I see no more.” He shakes his head wearily. “To know the complete prophecy, we will need the other two scrolls. I am… weary,” he murmurs. “I must rest.”

Isran nods at Eres, and takes the man by the arm. “Come, old man. I’ll show you a place you can rest for now.”

Isran leads the man out of the room. Eres, when he is out of earshot, turns to Serana. She has already replaced the scroll upon her back, and stares after Dexion with an unreadable look on her face.

Eres allows her the moment, until Isran returns again and closes the door behind him.

“That took a lot out of him,” he mutters. “Never thought reading a damn scroll could be so exhausting.”

Eres braces her hands on her hips, sighing. “Except we have another problem, now. Where the hell are we going to get these other two Scrolls? We don’t even know where to start looking for them.”

Isran sighs, too, looking almost as weary as the priest. “Only thing I could suggest is going up to the College in Winterhold. If anyone might know where to find a couple of Elder Scrolls, it’d be the mages. Maybe they even have them in their library, if we’re lucky.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

Isran lets out a humorless chuckle, shaking his head. “The way this has been going? Neither would I. Still, it’s as good a place to start as any. Good luck finding a way in there.”

“I might be able to manage it,” Eres considers, thinking of the little magic she knows. If they wouldn’t let her in for the Scrolls, perhaps she could pretend she was interested in studying there? If not, Serana had her own skill in magic that went far beyond Eres’ own – perhaps Serana would be able to get into the College, even if she couldn’t. “We’ll figure something out.”

Isran nods. “Take the damn horses this time. We’re on a deadline, now. We don’t have a damn clue what that Harkon fellow might be planning now that we’ve stolen his precious priest. Get to the other scrolls as fast as you can, and bring them back here. We’ve got to get ahead of him.”

With that, the man leaves them to themselves in that small, dim room hidden away from the fort proper.

Eres moves to the door, gently pushes it shut, and turns to Serana. “Alright,” she starts, leaning against it. “What is it?”

Serana blinks, looking up at her. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve had this look on your face since Dexion read the Scroll. Something’s bothering you.” Though Serana is harder to read than most, Eres has spent enough time with her now to know when something’s off—even if she’s not sure exactly what that something might be. “I imagined you didn’t want to say it in front of Isran.”

Serana regards her for a moment. “You’re right,” she says. “I didn’t want him to know. Or anyone else here. Half the people in your little crew here would just as soon kill me as talk to me. I got a warmer welcome from my father, and that’s saying something.”

“That’s fair,” Eres tells her, knowing that Isran isn’t the easiest man to get along with – even if you weren’t the exact thing he had dedicated his life to eradicating. “Does your father even care about you anymore?”

Serana takes a breath, then sighs. Her eyes flash briefly with what looks like pain, but it is locked behind her usual guard so quickly that Eres almost wonders if she had imagined it. “You know, I’ve asked myself the same thing. I thought…I _hoped_ that if he saw me, he might feel something again. But I guess I don’t really factor in at this point. I don’t think he even sees me as his daughter anymore. I’m just…a means to an end.”

“I’m sorry,” Eres murmurs, quiet. “About your father. I know it hurts.”

“I should have seen it coming, honestly.” Serana sighs again. “I guess sometimes, you just want to believe the best in people, even when you know better.”

“It doesn’t always work out poorly. I put my faith in you, even though I had reason not to.” Eres holds Serana’s gaze, and hopes that her words might bring some small amount of comfort. “I haven’t regretted it yet.”

Serana’s smile is wan, but it is better than the resigned melancholy that had been written across her face just before. “Thank you,” she says, and her voice is thick with meaning. “Really. I could say the same about you, actually. I took my own little leap of faith coming here, of all places.” Her smile widens, sincere and warm. “I haven’t regretted that decision yet, either.”

Maybe it’s just her, but the atmosphere feels a bit…strange for her liking. Eres returns Serana’s smile with one of her own, and rather than allowing that strange tension to fester, she steers them back to course.

“You said there was something you didn’t want Isran and the others to know? About the Scrolls?”

“Oh, yes,” Serana bites her lip. “I think I might know where to find one of those scrolls, actually.”

Whatever Eres had been expecting Serana to say, that was not it. Her eyebrows raise high. “You do? Why didn’t you say something?” Serana levels her with a look, and Eres concedes. “Right. Hostile environment. Carry on.”

“I think my mother might have some idea where it is—that is, if she doesn’t actually have it herself. We need to find her.”

“Your mother?” Eres thinks back on what little Serana has told her about her family. “Didn’t you say you didn’t know where she went? And your father said she’d disappeared, too.”

“She did, yes. The last time I saw her,” and Serana begins to pace, crossing from one end of the room to the other, and back again. “She said she would go somewhere safe. Somewhere that my father would never search. Other than that, she wouldn’t tell me anything. But the way she said it… _‘someplace he would never search’_. It was cryptic, yet she called attention to it.”

Eres hated to suggest it, but, “Is it possible your mother wasn’t sure she could trust you, either?”

“It’s a possibility,” Serana admits. “She was almost as obsessed as my father by the time she shut me in. But I can’t worry about that now. We need the scroll, and she’s our only lead. Besides, I can’t imagine a single place my father would avoid looking. And he’s had all this time, too. Where could she have gone that he still hasn’t been able to find her after all these years?”

“Another country, maybe?” Eres wonders. “Tamriel’s got no shortage of places one could get lost in.”

Serana shakes her head, adamant. “No, I don’t think she’d go that far. Even if she did, my father has… _friends_ all over Tamriel. I’d be surprised if hasn’t already searched high and low for her in every country.”

“Someplace he’d never search…” Eres thinks of all the times she’s misplaced things, and just how very often she’d found them in the most obvious places she just hadn’t thought to check. Surely, they wouldn’t be in the _open_ , she’d think—they wouldn’t be lost if it was obvious.

But what if…

“What about inside the castle?”

“ _Inside_ the castle?” At first, Serana looks at her like she’s grown a second head. But then, it is almost as though Eres can see the cogs turning in her mind. “ _Inside the castle_.” Serana actually laughs. “That almost makes sense! There’s a courtyard my mother used to tend; I used to help her with her garden. All of our ingredients for our potions came from there. She used to say my father couldn’t stand it. Too… peaceful.”

“That would be pretty risky,” Eres says, though she has to admit she’ll be impressed if that was the case. A bold move for a woman on the run. “Do you think she’d take that risk?”

“Oh, absolutely. My mother’s a lot of things, but a coward isn’t one of them. Now,” Serana shrugs, “I don’t think we’ll actually trip over her there or anything, but it’s worth a look. If nothing else, maybe we could find some kind of clue as to where she might be.”

Eres thinks of traveling all the way across Skyrim again to get to Serana’s home, and sighs. Not that she’d ever delve into dark magicks of any sort, but she had to admit that her experience with Altano’s portal was one she often remembered on long journeys. If only she could find a way to create portals like that without the dark influence and make them stable…

“They’re not going to let us walk through the front door,” Eres says instead. “Me, especially. I was banished, remember? I’m not exactly keen on becoming your father’s dinner.”

“True,” Serana looks vaguely amused by the reminder of Eres’ banishment at the hands of her father—or perhaps at the thought of her served up like a buffet. Eres, for her part, can’t see exactly what makes that funny. “But, I know a way we can get to the courtyard without arousing suspicion. There’s a little inlet on the northern side of the isle that used to be for bringing supplies into the castle, by the previous owners. Obviously, we didn’t really need it, being what we are—but there’s an old escape tunnel from the castle that exits there. I think that’s our way in.”

“So, we take the boat around the northern side, hunt for this secret passage into the castle and then… hopefully make it to the courtyard without being detected?” Eres shifts, scratching at the corner of her jaw. She’s always been a bit fidgety when anxious. “If your father gets wind of us in there…”

“He won’t,” Serana promises her. “There were parts of the castle that have been sealed up for centuries. Father never saw the point in fixing it all up, so he just closed the passages off. I’m fairly certain that escape tunnel doesn’t go into the castle proper, but rather parts of the castle no one ever bothers to go into.”

“But you’ve never been into this passage yourself?”

Serana shrugs. “Never had reason to go creeping around my own house before.”

“Point,” Eres concedes. “I guess we have a plan for one of the scrolls, then, but what about the other?”

“Isran had a good point for that one. The College might know more about where to find it.”

Thinking logistically, it would certainly make more sense to tackle the College first – they could make their way to Riften and travel directly north up to Winterhold, handle the business in the College, and then turn west to make their way for the northwestern coast where they could make their way back to the Castle.

On the other hand, Eres could also see the merit in going for Serana’s mother first. Harkon may not have found her yet, but there was always the chance that he would. The sooner they reached the castle and searched for Serana’s mother, the less likely it would be that Harkon would come to the same conclusion they had and find her first.

More than that, something about the way Serana holds herself, the way she’d spoken of it—Eres gets the distinct feeling that she knows which route Serana would prefer.

The College could wait, then.

“Looks like we’re headed back to your castle, then, Princess.”

Serana’s eyes narrow. “Don’t call me Princess.”

Eres sweeps her arms into a gratuitous bow, bending at the waist. “As you wish, _Lady_ Serana.”

“If you fall in the water again, I’m letting you drown.”

On this trip, it is Serana who helms the boat, and Eres watches her navigate the choppy waters of the rolling sea with ease. Serana turns them further westward, giving the main dock a wide berth, and effortlessly manages to weave the boat in a wide path around the other side of the island. Only when they are out of sight from the main docks does Serana steer them inward, into what might have once been a mooring.

‘Dilapidated’ is not quite the word for it. The dock here, built into the side of the island, has been unmanaged for what might be centuries. Barnacles grow upon the stone, half of the area seems to have collapsed under the weight of time passing, or perhaps once the castle may have been besieged here, and no one had bothered to repair it.

Whatever the case, Serana pulls them inland until they find a slope they can ground the boat upon, as the docks themselves are no longer functional, and then, almost casually, Serana uses one hand to drag the boat further up the slope until there is little chance of it being dragged away by the sea. The strength of a vampire, it seems, is nothing to sneeze at.

“Why did I row us the last time?” Eres grouses, though good-naturedly. Even with the wide detour they’d taken and the choppy waters, it felt as though the trip had been shorter than when she’d been at the oars.

Serana shrugs. “You offered. I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer for it when you seemed so willing to do it yourself.” And she sends Eres a cheeky little smirk, but one that does not quite reach her eyes.

“Feeling alright?”

Serana blinks once, and her brow knits slightly. Eres wonders what kind of life this woman must have had, to always be so caught off guard whenever someone asks after her.

“I’m fine,” Serana says, stiffly. She glances up at the ruins that may have once served as a supply dock, and then sighs. “Sorry. I’m—” her voice changes, turning softer, more open. “It’s strange to be back here again at all, and then to feel like an intruder in my own home…”

Eres nods, understanding. “We can take a moment, if you need to.” She hears nothing but the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline, and there is the smell of ocean salt on the air. There is nothing to indicate they might have been spotted, or that anyone is nearby.

“No, it’s fine. I’d rather get this over with.”

Serana turns from her, and marches up the crumbled remains of what might have once been stairs. Eres picks her way up carefully after her – even if Serana is surefooted and confident that the stone will not crumble beneath her feet, she’s also immortal. Eres is not.

“There should be a door around here that leads to the cistern.”

“Cistern?” Eres’ nose wrinkles in advance. “As in a _sewer_?”

Serana turns her head back to look at her, raising a brow. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Did I stutter?”

Eres lets out a long-suffering sigh. “No, I’m just getting really tired of sewers.”

“Oh? Spend a lot of time in sewers, do you?”

“Ha-ha,” Eres drones, rolling her eyes behind Serana’s back. “I’ve had to trudge through a few in my lifetime.” Or one, really, but the Ratway was one such experience she isn’t keen on repeating.

“Ah, here it is,” Serana points out a door that is half-buried with rubble. A broken pillar from—somewhere—had collapsed in front of it and broken into pieces.

“Hope that door opens inward.” There’s no way in hell they’d be able to lift those stones by themselves.

Serana scoffs, and almost casually, presses her foot against the side of one of the pieces that rests in front of the door, and pushes. The stone groans, shifts, and rolls over. Eres stumbles out of the way before it can decide to roll over her foot.

“How strong _are_ you?”

“Hopefully you’ll never have to find out,” Serana replies, shrugging. “Being a vampire has its perks.”

“I can see that.”

Moving that stone had unblocked the approach to the door at least, but it likely wouldn’t be able to swing open very far, even still. But Serana takes the knob in one hand, and presses her shoulder against it, and with a slight shove, the door groans open – and then thuds against something behind it.

“Wonderful,” Eres mutters. With a flick of her wrist, she sends an orb of light within the crack. “What is it?”

“Barrel,” Serana says absently. She sighs, and then, tossing her hair from her face, says, “Oh, well,” and shoves hard against the door once more.

The sound of wood splintering cracks in the brisk night air, and what sounds like the sloshing of liquid. The door yawns open.

“Did you just break the barrel?” Eres peers into the room illuminated by the bright magelight, and frowns. It doesn’t look like there’s much beyond it, but she can already smell the stench of stale, sitting water.

“Oops,” Serana says, without much feeling. She moves inward, and Eres follows after her.

“It’s a wonder you didn’t break the door.”

“Strong door,” Serana shrugs. She raps a knuckle against the iron braces over the slats of the wooden door.

Eres wants to say, _‘Strong woman’,_ but she feels that’s rather redundant at this point. She does, however, make a note not to piss the woman off any time soon. Or ever.

Instead, she sweeps her arm in front of her, a gesture to indicate that Serana should take the lead. Serana bows her head in an almost exaggerated fashion, and walks ahead of her.

“Any idea where we’re going?”

“Vaguely,” Serana murmurs. She does, at least, seem to know where to step to stay out of the water, and so Eres follows in her footsteps. “I didn’t exactly spend a lot of my time down here.”

Eres swears there’s a skeleton beneath the water. “Can’t imagine why.”

Eres gets a whiff of something even fouler, and pulls her scarf tight around her nose. “Gods, it stinks. You’re lucky you don’t have to breathe in this place.”

“Perks,” Serana repeats, glancing at her—and then suddenly her too-bright eyes widen. “Watch out!”

Eres has all of half a second to react before Serana’s hand grips her by the collar and _yanks_ —her body flies forward and she stumbles nearly into the woman’s chest as a spike of ice flies from the woman’s free hand.

Eres hears a groan, and then a rasp of dying breath.

Turning her head, she sees the corpse of a vampire, sinking to the ground from where it had stumbled back into the far wall.

“Where the hell did that thing come from?”

“It’s probably been down here for years. Decades, even,” Serana lets out a breath. Her hand is still fisted in Eres’ robes, but it relaxes ever so slightly. “They must have been… hibernating, or something. Without any food.” Serana looks at her. “I’m guessing your scent roused them.”

Eres feels a chill run down her spine. She hadn’t even heard it move – with her mind focused on drowning out the stench of this place, she hadn’t been paying attention. She’d let her guard down. What might have happened if Serana hadn’t been here, or hadn’t noticed? Would she have heard them before they lunged and got a good bite in?

“Well, thanks.”

Serana nods. “No problem.” Strangely, though Eres knows that vampires don’t have blood running through their veins as mortals do, it seems almost as though the woman’s face is flushed, a bit less pale than usual. Her breathing even seems elevated, despite not needing to breathe as Eres must.

Eres tilts her head, curious. “Were you afraid for me?”

Serana’s face morphs into something resembling a scowl, and she pushes Eres away by her collar as she releases her. “I still need you,” she says dismissively, walking briskly away from her.

“Sure,” Eres allows, secretly pleased.

There may be some parts of her that still doubt Serana’s intention, that maybe it is as Serana says, and the woman is just using her for her own gain, but moments like these sends that doubt crawling back into the hole it came from. Serana cares for her, in some way, even if she doesn’t want to admit it just yet.

Eres is fine with that. She’s growing rather fond of the woman herself, and she’s glad to see that it doesn’t seem entirely one-sided. Even if Serana likes to pretend that it might be.

“This way. If we follow this around to the other side, we should be able to find the lever that drops the other side of the bridge.”

“Not much of a security measure then, is it?”

“Just how many people do you think go crawling around in these sewers?”

“Two too many,” Eres replies easily. She steps gingerly around a skeleton stretched across the narrow hallway. She doesn’t want to know how it got there, and she doesn’t ask.

Finding the lever turns out to be easier than Eres expected, though she’s not a fan of traipsing through a cistern filled with the skeletons of former meals.

“Just how many people have you killed?”

“Me, or my family?” A bone crunches beneath Eres’ feet. Her stomach feels weighed down with lead as she feels them splinter and crack beneath her feet. The poor bastards – didn’t even get a proper burial. Or a cremation. Just left to rot in a sewer.

“That was a rhetorical question. I don’t actually want to know.” She’s probably better off not knowing, anyways. She’d just started to like Serana, after all. She had enough trouble justifying the developing friendship between herself as a Vigilant and a _vampire_ to worry about how much blood Serana could have on her hands.

Ahead of her, Serana shrugs.

“I think this bridge will lead us up to the exit in the courtyard.”

“You don’t think your father will have men posted there?”

“Doubtful,” Serana shakes her head. “The courtyard was where my mother spent most of her time. She used to have this sprawling garden there – I told you of it before. She tended it personally. I used to help her, there, sometimes.”

They stop just outside of the door that should lead them out to said courtyard, but Serana makes no move to open it, and so Eres does not either.

“Were you close with her?”

“I was, once,” Serana murmurs, her eyes distant and unfocused. “We spent a lot of time together. She taught me everything I know about alchemy and necromancy. I was closer to her than my father, at least.”

Eres leans against the wall across from Serana, crossing her arms over her chest. She can’t say they’re not in any rush, but she feels as though Serana needs to speak about this, needs to get it off her chest. She won’t tell her they don’t have time for it.

“But…?” She prompts.

Serana sighs. “But then there was a change. Just like with my father. All of a sudden she just… didn’t want me anywhere near her. I’d try to spend time with her in the courtyard, and she’d just… shoo me away. Like she couldn’t be bothered with me. And then she disappeared shortly after that. And well, you know what happened after that.”

“Is it possible she might have just been hiding something instead?” Eres asks. “Something she didn’t want you to know about. Maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t want you around, but that she couldn’t have you there for some reason.”

“Maybe,” Serana says, but her tone is laced with doubt.

Eres’ own heart aches for her. She had her own experience with shitty, absent parents. Feeling like she wasn’t wanted. She knows what that feels like, and she knows just how much it sucks.

Serana lets out a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan, and she shakes her head. “Let’s just get this over with. Hopefully we can find something here that might show us where to look for her.”

Serana opens the door.

What lies beyond the door, it seems, is not what Serana had been expecting. What might have once been a lush courtyard and garden looks not so dissimilar to that of the inlet dock – dilapidated and ruined, clearly forgotten and abandoned.

Serana seems dismayed by the transformation of what might have once been a sacred place to her – a place where, even if briefly, she had been able to feel close to her mother. Serana tells Eres briefly of the time she had spent within the courtyard, and the strangeness of the moondial and its missing crests, and then promptly goes silent and contemplative.

Eres, who has seen more than her fair share of puzzles that open secret doors, leaves Serana to her thoughts, and searches the courtyard for the crests that are absent from the dial.

It takes her nearly an hour to locate all of them, and by the time she makes her way back to Serana, dawn is breaking over the horizon, turning the sky a smattering of blues, purples, and orangeish-reds.

“I found these,” Eres says, without much preamble. She crouches to replace one of them, and then continues to circle the dial to look for the next. Serana blinks, snapped out of her reverie, and watches her replace them one by one.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not sure if—”

The last crest clicks into place, and Eres hears the sound of stone shifting beneath her feet. She steps back, and watches as the gnomon slowly spins into its proper place – and then, at once, the stone of the face of the dial shifts and turns and drops into a hidden staircase leading downwards.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Serana breathes. “She _was_ hiding something.”

“Told you,” Eres smirks over at her, and is pleased to see that the melancholy that Serana had been wearing like a cloak since they’d arrived had shifted into a quiet air of awe. “This is probably what your mother had been working on before she disappeared. Why she was keeping you away from this place.”

Serana’s lips pull slowly into a frown. “Did she not think she could trust me?”

“I think it’s more about keeping you safe,” Eres tells her, gently. “With all you’ve told me about your father, I wouldn’t put torture past him. Maybe she thought keeping it from you was the only way she could protect you.” She shrugs, then, helplessly. “I don’t know. It’s not like I knew her. But perhaps you shouldn’t think the worst of her just yet.”

“I’ll try not to,” Serana promises, with a small smile. “Gotta admit,” she turns, looking at the hidden staircase. “This is very clever. _Very_ clever, Mother.”

“Shall we head in?”

“No time to lose, now,” Serana nods. “I don’t think we can close this, now. Hopefully this leads to my mother. Otherwise…”

“We’ll find her,” Eres assures her. “One way or another.”

“I’ve never even seen this part of the castle before,” Serana warns, when they enter. The door, it seems, opens right into a hearth. The both of them have to crouch under the mantle just to make it inside the room. “Be careful, there’s no telling what might be lurking around down here. Especially if my mother was trying to keep anyone from getting in.”

“Great,” Eres mutters, a moment before she steps into what might have once been a dining hall. In the dim lighting, she can see almost nothing aside from the shadowed silhouettes of the long table and the chairs sat at it.

That is, she can see almost nothing before the fireplace lights _itself_ , and she hears the telltale rasp of the undead. Many, many undead.

Dawnbreakers hums hungrily at her back as the draugr lurch to their feet.

Eres reaches for the hilt of the enchanted blade, and can sense the wellspring of divine energy within it. “Get behind something.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Serana snaps her head to look at her, eyes wide – the crackling energy of a lightning spell at her fingertips.

“Just trust me,” Eres huffs. “Unless you _like_ getting burned.”

Serana’s eyes narrow, but she takes a step back behind the wall just as the first of the draugr to stand roars in Eres’ direction. “I don’t know what you’re planning with that thing, but—”

Serana’s face disappears behind the wall, and Eres draws Dawnbreaker from its sheath. The ringing of the singing blade is already starting to give her a headache.

Meridia’s blade yearns to cleanse the world of these undead, and Eres plans to do just that. When the first of the draugr sprints for her in that uneven, loping gait, she drops her weight onto her back leg and waits for its approach.

It closes in, roaring once more, lifts its blade, and brings it heavily down upon her head—or where it might have been. Eres sidesteps the wide swing, and with Dawnbreaker thrumming in her hands, she arcs it across the undead’s half-rotted body.

The smell of burning, rotted flesh singes at her nostrils. The blade cuts through the draugr’s form like butter, and Eres feels the surge of energy within the blade. She follows through on the slash of her blade and turns her head away from the draugr before her –

And the room _explodes_ with light and sound and the cacophonous roar of draugr howling in pain. A moment later, the sound of heavy bodies falling to the ground in undignified heaps meets her ears.

The hall falls silent, save for the lingering embers licking at the bones of the felled draugr.

Serana slips out from behind the wall, sweeps her gaze around the room, and gives her a betrayed look, even past the still-bright light of Dawnbreaker’s inlaid gem. “What the ever living _fuck_ was _that_?”

Eres clasps her free hand over the gem to block its light from burning at Serana’s eyes. “Meridia _really_ hates Draugr,” she explains, succinct. “The more there are,” she shrugs. “The harder they fall.”

“That’s… not how the saying goes.”

Eres shrugs again. “It is now.” She keeps Dawnbreaker drawn, just in case, but she closes her hand over the gem at its hilt so that the light of it doesn’t blind Serana quite as much as they move deeper into the tower. “You don’t know anything about this place? For example, what else your mother might have in store for us?”

“Well, I didn’t even know this place existed until about five minutes ago, so no. I don’t.” Serana looks around, and it’s plain from the look on her face that she is not lying about not having seen the place before. “She kept this a secret, even from me. She must have been up to something she thought was dangerous. I didn’t even think this tower was accessible, but as long as we keep moving upwards, I think we should find our way out. Or, maybe, find our way to _her_.”

“Good a plan as any,” Eres agrees.

“But, as far as what else might be in here…” Serana reaches out, and a hand closes around Eres’ arm. “I’d give those gargoyles a wide berth, if I were you. My mother had a bit of a thing for magical constructs.”

Both of Eres’ brows raise.

Serana grimaces at her. “Not like _that_. She just found them fascinating.”

“Fascinating,” Eres repeats. “Is that what they called it in your day?”

“I have a dagger,” Serana reminds her pointedly.

Eres chuckles, and indeed, gives the gargoyle in the hall a wide berth.

Not that it helps.

“For fuck’s sake,” Eres curses, narrowly dodging the debris that flies towards her when the gargoyle _erupts_ from its stone prison.

“Couldn’t have been that simple,” Serana grouses.

It is not the last gargoyle they are forced to kill within the ruins of the tower, and the draugr seem to be around every corner, as well.

“Remind me to kill your mother when I see her.”

“She’s already dead, technically.”

“I’m going to kill her _again_ , then.”

Serana laughs, because she knows that Eres’ threat is not genuine – no matter how much Eres really _does_ feel like showing Valerica a piece of her mind.

When they have climbed more steps than Eres can count, killed an inordinate amount of draugr and five too many gargoyles than Eres had ever wanted to encounter only to find themselves in a room with four separate gargoyle statues, Eres lets out a loud, long groan of dismay.

“I’m _so_ going to kill her.”

“Get in line. I think my father’s ahead of you—”

Eres taps one of the gargoyles with the flat of Dawnbreaker’s blade. It does not move. “Maybe they’re decorative?”

Serana levels her with a look.

“Right, couldn’t be that simple.” She knows they _must_ be activated by something, but it’s clearly not proximity. “Any way for us to disable them before they wake up?”

“Unfortunately, no, not that I know of. The stone protects them from any preemptive attacks. It’s pretty much like fighting a statue. Only once they break through are they actually susceptible to anything.”

“Wonderful,” Eres takes a step away from it, and hears the shattering of stone and a guttural roar. “Here we go—”

The roar closes in on her too fast, and by the time she turns her head to look at the thing barreling toward her, her breath is punched from her lungs by a metric _shitton_ of stone ramming into her side and there’s the briefest burst of pain in her ribs and then the back of her head and then—

She wakes. In a strange, heavy silence. There is something bitter on her lips. Her head swims with even the slightest movement of her eyes, and it hurts a bit to breathe, but there is soft cushion underneath her and she is staring up at a vaulted ceiling she does not recognize.

She licks her lips. Bitter, with the slightest hint of a flowery aftertaste. A potion. One of her own healing potions, she imagines.

“Good, you’re awake.”

When Eres turns her head, she sees Serana approaching, a leatherbound journal held open with one hand, and a large mortar in the other. She looks relieved to see Eres awake.

“I thought you were a goner there for a second.”

Eres sits up – slowly. Very slowly. But her body does not fight against her, and she at least does not feel the urge to be sick. Her head still swims enough that she sways a bit when she stands, but overall—she is feeling alright, all things considered. “How long have I been out?”

“Not long. Half an hour, maybe?” Serana shrugs. “You were in and out for a bit, but I’m guessing you don’t remember that part.”

Eres doesn’t, but knowing that she hadn’t been unconscious for a full half-hour is reassuring. If she’d been out for that long in one stretch, she’d be worried. Still, she can’t remember anything that had happened between the gargoyle coming at her and getting—here. Wherever “here” is.

“Where the hell are we?”

“My mother’s laboratory. Apparently.” Serana shakes her head a bit. “I had no idea this was even here. It’s not far from where you got knocked out. Seems like that room was meant to be Mother’s last resort for anyone who made it that far. Once they were down, I just had to carry you here.”

“Well, thanks for not leaving me to die.” Eres mutters dryly.

“They didn’t hit you _that_ hard. You’ve got a concussion and a few broken ribs. You’ll live.”

“I do love getting good news.”

“Then you’re going to love this,” Serana starts, and her lips curl into an almost giddy smile. “I found my mother’s journal. She was working on making a portal to the _Soul Cairn_ here. I can’t believe it. I knew my mother was good, but—”

“Remind me again what the Soul Cairn is. I can’t think.” For good measure, Eres reaches into her pouch and downs another vial of reddish, bitter liquid. She chases it with a long sip from her waterskin, and the effect is almost immediate. The vertigo calms, and her vision feels just slightly clearer. Her ribs still ache like a bitch, but she doesn’t quite feel like death anymore.

“It’s—hard to explain. I only know what she told me. She had this theory that souls that become trapped in soul gems end up there, in the Soul Cairn. The realm is ruled by the Ideal Masters, and necromancers send them souls in exchange for power—or something to that end. You see that circle on the floor?”

Eres does, and she doesn’t like the look of it. It looks ritualistic.

“I think Mother used that to create a portal to the Soul Cairn. She has all the ingredients listed here in her journal for safe passage there. I started working on it while you were out.”

“And?” Eres asks, feeling her head swim for an entirely different reason than having a concussion. “What then? When you’ve got all the ingredients?”

“Well, then we can follow her.” Serana moves to a nearby table, sets the mortar and journal upon it, and then starts to remove one of her leather gauntlets. With it off, she pushes her sleeve up to her elbow, pulls out her dagger, and slices a thin cut into her forearm. This, she holds over the mortar, and allows it to drip into the bowl. “Last ingredient is the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbor—like my mother’s. Or mine. After this, we should be set.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Eres has to ask. “Traveling to this Soul Cairn. You said it’s a realm of what, trapped souls? The undead? And these ‘Ideal Masters’? How can we be sure it’s safe?”

“Well, it probably isn’t,” Serana admits. She wipes her arm with a piece of cloth, and surprisingly, the cut in her arm is already starting to heal. Eres has known that vampires are supposed to have advanced regeneration, of course, but seeing it in action is quite different from reading about it in a textbook.

“But my mother’s in there. I know it. She must have thought she could hide there. I bet she even has the Scroll with her. She did say she would hide somewhere my father would never search, and there’s no way he could ever have made his own way there.”

“Alright,” Eres concedes. “But I don’t like this.”

Serana snaps her gauntlet into place, and when she looks at Eres again, the expression she wears has turned from near-giddy to deeply apologetic. “Well, you’re going to like this even less.”

Eres takes a deep breath, and lets it out. “And here comes the bad news.”

Serana nods. “You said it yourself, the Soul Cairn is a realm of the _undead_. My mother, and likely myself, can travel there without worrying too much. We aren’t technically alive, and our souls have already been… pledged, in a way. But you—you’re only mortal. And I can imagine that it won’t be very welcoming to you.”

Eres’ brow furrows, and her frown deepens. “You expect me to let you go in there by yourself?”

“Not what I was suggesting. I could,” Serana admits, “but I’d rather not. What I meant is, you probably _can’t_ go in there as you are. But—”

“No,” Eres snaps out, before Serana can utter it aloud. “You’re not turning me.”

Serana frowns, and Eres hates that the woman looks a little offended. “I know being a vampire isn’t exactly on your to-do list, but—”

“It’s not that.” Eres tells her. “I mean. It is,” she sighs. “But even if I _was_ alright with it, I couldn’t.” Serana raises a brow at her. “I… can’t really get into it. But I can’t allow that to happen.”

Gods _forbid_ —Molag Bal would have a fucking field day if Serana turned her. She’s not going to hand herself over that easily.

“Is there no other way?”

“Well, there is, but I’m afraid it’s not really that much better.” Serana crosses the room to a shelf, pulls something from it, and returns to her.

In her hands is something Eres recognizes all too well. A Black soul gem.

“I could partially soul trap you.” Serana holds up a hand to stop her before she can protest. “Let me finish. The Ideal Masters will definitely want your soul for their own, and if you go in there as you are now… I don’t know that the Soul Cairn wouldn’t just drain you entirely. But what I could do, is trap a piece of your soul within this gem – you’d be weaker than you are now, but when we go in, your soul would already have been sent to the Soul Cairn, so, theoretically—”

“I wouldn’t be intruding, and they wouldn’t try to drain what’s left of me,” Eres finishes. “Are you _sure_?”

“Well, no, but it’s all we have. We can probably ask my mother how we might retrieve the rest of your soul, too, once we’re in there. I’m sure there’s a way.”

Eres pinches the bridge of her nose.

“So, become a vampire, or let you trap my soul in a rock and _hope_ that we can get it back once we’re in there? Those are my only two options to go with you?”

“It’s… all I can think of.” Serana’s shoulders drop, and she places the gem gently upon the table. She steps forward, and her hand lifts to curl around Eres’ bicep, comfortingly. “I know this is an impossible decision. And I’d understand if you would rather me go alone. I’d… feel better, if you went with me—but I’d understand if you didn’t, too. I don’t want you to feel pressured into something you’re not comfortable with.”

“I’m not comfortable with any of it,” Eres admits, looking back up at her. “Definitely not with you turning me, for various reasons,” she starts. “Not with being _soul-trapped_ , and having to hope I might be able to get it back and not even knowing for sure—I mean, what happens if we can’t? Can I even live with only _part_ of my soul?”

Serana doesn’t appear to have an answer.

“But I also don’t feel comfortable letting you go in there alone.”

Strangely, the thought of Serana traversing the Soul Cairn by herself makes Eres even more uncomfortable than the thought of being a vampire or being soul-trapped. She knows that Serana is powerful – she’s insanely strong, she’s immortal, she is an incredibly accomplished mage with both the school of Destruction _and_ Necromancy, and, more than likely, she would be able to manage just fine without Eres’ help.

But Eres _hates_ the idea of Serana going off into such an unfamiliar, dangerous place without Eres there to watch her back. She hates even more the thought of Serana confronting her mother alone, when she’s never met anyone who needs the support of a friend as much as Serana does.

“Just… Give me some time to think.”

Serana nods quietly, and releases her. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Eres turns from her, finds a quiet, dimly-lit corner of Valerica’s sprawling laboratory, and promptly drops to her knees. She folds her hands in her lap, closes her eyes, and allows the world around her to fade into the background.

 _Give me an answer,_ she pleads – of Stendarr, of Mara, of any God that might listen to her. _Tell me what to do._

How could she fulfill her duties, her obligations—to Stendarr, to the Dawnguard, to Serana herself—without compromising everything she is in the process?


	9. Chasing Echoes

ACT III  
CHAPTER IX  
“CHASING ECHOES”

There is no sudden, life-altering epiphany. Stendarr does not speak to her. Mara’s warmth does not embrace her. Even Dawnbreaker is silent and stoic against her back.

As much as Eres had wanted an easy answer to the dilemma presented to her, she cannot rely on the gods to make her decisions for her.

She cannot accept Serana’s offer to be turned. Molag Bal would only be too happy to drag her kicking and screaming into his realm of Oblivion. The safest option for herself, of course, would be to allow Serana to enter the Soul Cairn and search for her mother alone.

The Soul Cairn would not affect Serana as it will Eres. Serana will not be weakened by it, will not be drained by it, and she is a powerful enough woman that Eres is certain that Serana would have no issue traversing that realm alone, even without her help.

But – Eres imagines herself watching Serana walk into the Soul Cairn alone, not knowing what happens on the other side. Being left behind to wait and hope that everything will turn out well, with no control over the outcome.

She cannot allow Serana to go alone. Serana has been alone long enough.

When Eres rises to her feet, Serana straightens from her position leaned against one of the few worktables in her mother’s laboratory, but she does not speak. She waits, her eyes seeming to glow in the dim lighting of the darkened tower room, and her gaze follows Eres as she approaches.

“Soul trap me,” Eres says, and that is that.

Serana’s expression shifts, and she holds her hands in front of her, clasping them together in front of her waist. “Are you sure?” She asks. “You’ll be weakened within the Soul Cairn, and there’s… There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get back what was lost.”

Eres has already considered that, but she trusts that they will – somehow – find a way. “I’m sure.”

Serana nods, pensive. “Okay,” she says, and her hands come apart, and within them is the crackling energy of her mana. “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible. I hope that you know you can trust me.”

Eres nods. “I do trust you, Serana.”

The barest of smiles crosses the other woman’s lips. “I’m glad to hear that. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Eres returns Serana’s slight smile. “I know,” she responds, and braces herself for what is to come. “Will it hurt?”

“Maybe,” Serana answers. “But hopefully not too much. Don’t move.”

The air sits heavy in Eres’ lungs. It feels like the ground beneath her feet wants to swallow her whole, and if she stands for too long in one spot, it might just open up beneath her and take her for its own. Her head feels fogged, her thoughts fuzzy, and her vision blurs whenever she turns her head too quickly. When she takes a step and sways, Serana’s hand clutches at her arm to steady her.

“Let’s make this quick,” Serana says quietly. “Maybe we should have rested before we came here. You still have a concussion.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Eres manages, and even the act of speaking is exhausting. “Just how much of my soul did you take?”

“Enough,” Serana tells her. “I didn’t want to leave too much, or it might not have satisfied them. And,” she adds, “it’s not like I’ve ever done this before. I didn’t think it would hit you this hard, though.”

“This place isn’t friendly to the living,” Eres moves forward, and, with not a small amount of effort, manages to walk on her own without nearly toppling over.

She looks around—slowly—and the Soul Cairn could not have been drearier if it had tried. Everywhere she looks, in any direction, is barren, the ground as cold and gray as the skies above. The structures – what little there are – seem to be made of blackened, almost deep purplish stone. Soft, white wisps of energy flit from one place to another, drifting almost peacefully in the wind. From the entrance, Eres can even see the soft, bluish-white forms of spirits lingering around the area.

Stranger still than seeing ghosts, the ghosts seem not to see them. None of them give the pair a second look as they walk past.

“I wouldn’t interact with any of them if I were you,” Serana says quickly, tugging at Eres’ sleeve when she hears the pleading of a man in the distance. “You don’t belong here, and it’s better that no one notices us if we can help it.”

“It sounds like he needs help,” Eres murmurs. Who, or what, is Arvak? Why is that man yelling that name like that? He sounds incredibly desperate.

“Eres, everyone here is dead,” Serana reminds her. “We can’t help any of them anymore.”

Eres sighs, and allows Serana to lead her away from that sorrowful voice, and further into the realm.

Each step she takes feels heavier than the last.

“Any idea where your mother might be?”

“Does it look like I’ve been here before?” Serana retorts. “I have about as much of an idea as you do.”

Eres hums absently, distracted by a deep, resonant humming. It sounds almost like Dawnbreaker, but deeper, heavier. Darker. She tilts her head up until her eyes land upon the sight of a massive diamond-shaped gem floating in the air above one of the dark stone structures.

“What’s that thing?” She wonders, and moves towards it. She bets she could reach it from that ruin—

Serana’s hand snaps once again around her arm and she yanks at her so forcefully that Eres nearly trips over her own feet, stumbling backward. Her shoulder aches, but her mind clears.

“What the hell was that for?”

“I can guarantee you, whatever that thing is, there’s a reason it’s calling to _you_ and not me.” Serana says tersely. “Don’t make me put a leash on you.”

“I’m fine,” Eres protests, but Serana doesn’t release her arm. Instead, the woman grips her by the elbow and fairly drags her along beside her. “I can walk on my own, you know.”

“I don’t trust you not to go running off to hand yourself to the Ideal Masters. This place seems to be affecting you mentally as well as physically. Even you’re not usually this stupid.”

“Thanks,” Eres drawls.

“I’m serious, Eres.” Serana looks at her again, and Eres sobers at the unfiltered concern in her eyes. “I can feel that thing from here, but not in the way you can. It’s draining the energy of anything near it. If you get too close to one of those things, it might just sap what little soul you have left in you.”

“Oh.” Eres shivers. It’s cold in the Soul Cairn, but it feels suddenly much, much colder. “You’re saving my life a lot these days.”

“Yeah, you owe me.” Serana pulls at her, marching her forward. “So keep walking.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eres reaches down with one hand, and closes her fist around the little carving of Stendarr’s horn that dangles from her belt. She feels no divine influence upon it – it is nothing more than chiseled wood, after all – but the feeling of it pressed against her palm helps to ground her in the moment.

“Let’s find your mother.”

Just when Eres might have lost hope that they would _ever_ find Serana’s mother in this damned place, they crest a hill, and in the distance looms the largest structure they’ve seen yet – and even from so far away, Eres can see the shimmering edges of a ward placed around it.

Eres looks at Serana. “How much you wanna bet that’s where we find your mother?”

“That’s a bet I’d lose, I think,” Serana says absently. The ghost of a smile flickers across her lips only briefly before her expression turns pensive. “But—that barrier. My mother’s powerful, but even she’s not _that_ powerful. That’s the biggest ward I’ve ever seen.”

“Soul gems, maybe?” Eres offers, shrugging. “Maybe she found a way.”

“I don’t think soul gems can be used here. Not in the same way, at least.”

Serana pulls Eres forward, at a much brisker pace than before. Now that they’ve a goal in mind aside from mindless wandering, she seems more energized than before.

“Hopefully she has some idea on how to retrieve the rest of your soul.”

“Gods, I hope so.” Eres doesn’t want to imagine living the rest of her life feeling like she might fall over if the wind blew a bit too hard. She’s never felt so damn tired in her life.

When they finally approach the structure – an almost fort-like building, it seems, now that they’ve gotten a good look at it – Eres has no idea what to expect when they climb those stairs. Even Serana seems a bit reluctant, but she pulls Eres alongside her, anyways.

Just behind the barrier, Eres sees the figure of a woman, bent over an alchemy laboratory. From her stature and build, she doesn’t appear to be very old – and she has the same dark hair and pale skin as Serana herself.

“Mother?” Serana calls out, and the woman freezes, her head snapping around to look at them. “Mother, it’s me!”

“ _Serana?_ ” The woman breathes out, and through the barrier, the sound of her voice is muffled just slightly, as though she’s speaking to them through a solid wall.

The woman straightens, and approaches them – cautiously, but with a hand outstretched as if she wishes to draw Serana into her arms.

Eres takes a step back, feeling Serana’s hand drop from her arm, and she allows them what little privacy she can offer.

There is something incredibly awkward about watching someone argue with their parents right in front of you, but it’s even more so when there’s no way for you to remove yourself from the conversation. Eres is glad to hear that Serana speaks truthfully of what she thought of Valerica and how she’d been treated; glad that the woman has the chance to air her grievances.

She is gladder still that she was right – in that all that Valerica had done, misguided as it was, had been in the hopes to protect Serana from harm. As a mother should.

When Valerica turns her crimson eyes upon Eres, Eres straightens – knowing what is to come.

“So how has it come to pass that a _Vigilant_ such as you is in the company of my daughter? It pains me to think you’d travel with Serana under the guise of her protector in an effort to hunt me down.”

Eres almost laughs in her face. _Her_? Protect _Serana_? Could Valerica not see that she could barely stand on her own in this place? Even in the mortal realm, Serana hardly needed her protection – not that she wouldn’t offer it, of course, but Serana is more than capable of fending for herself.

“It’s not a ruse,” she says instead. Then she frowns. “How did you know I was a Vigilant?”

Valerica scoffs at her, disgusted. “Please. As if I wouldn’t recognize the stench of Stendarr’s influence all over you. His Righteous graces practically drip from your pores, for how much you reek of Him.”

“ _Mother_ ,” Serana chastises.

Eres ignores the jab, as much as she wants to ask _what the hell that means_. “I just want to keep her safe,” she admits, entirely truthful. There is no reason for her to lie here, and especially not if she wants Valerica to trust her. “I don’t have any ulterior motive for coming here. Serana actually asked me to come with her.”

Valerica’s lip curls, and from the look of contempt in her eyes, it’s plain that the woman hardly believes her.

“Coming from one who murders vampires as trade, I find it hard to believe your intentions are noble. Serana has sacrificed _everything_ to prevent Harkon from completing the prophecy. I would have expected her to explain that to you.”

Annoyed, Eres crosses her arms over her chest. “Yes. She did, actually. Which is why we’re here for the Scroll. We need to figure out the rest of this prophecy so we can put a stop to it for good.”

Valerica scoffs again, rolling her eyes at her. “You think I’d have the audacity to place my own daughter in that tomb for the protection of the Elder Scroll alone? The scrolls are merely a means to an end. The key to the Tyranny of the Sun is Serana herself.”

Eres’ brow furrows, and she cuts her eyes to Serana. Serana meets her gaze, but she looks as lost as Eres feels.

“Mother, what does that mean?”

“When I fled the castle,” Valerica starts, looking back at Serana – and when she speaks to her daughter, her voice softens and warms, and is nothing like the cold condescension she uses to speak to Eres, “I fled with two of the Scrolls. The scroll you found with Serana speaks of Auriel and his bow. The second scroll declares that ‘ _The Blood of Coldharbor’s Daughter will blind the Eye of the Dragon’._ ”

Eres’ frown deepens. “Which means…?” She has an idea, from her own research – but she wants confirmation. As much as the thought of it alone pains her. 

“Like myself, Serana was also human once. We were devout followers of Lord Molag Bal.” Eres tenses, and beside her, Serana averts her eyes. “Tradition dictates that the females be offered to Molag Bal on his summoning day. Few survive the ordeal. Those that do emerge as a pure-blooded vampire. We call such confluences the ‘Daughters of Coldharbour.’”

Eres does not want to think of the implications of Serana being _offered_ to Molag Bal, and so she pushes that thought from the forefront of her mind. “So this Tyranny of the Sun – it requires Serana’s blood.”

Valerica nods. “Now you’re beginning to see why I wanted to protect Serana, and why I’ve kept the other scroll as far from her as possible.”

“Would Harkon really kill her to fulfill this prophecy?” Eres asks, because she doesn’t believe that Serana can bring herself to ask.

“If Harkon obtained Auriel’s Bow, and Serana’s blood was used to taint the weapon, then the Tyranny of the Sun would be complete. In his eyes,” Valerica stated, and she looks at Serana with some pity in her eyes, “she would be dying for the good of all vampires.”

Eres feels her blood rise, heating within her veins. The thought of that man turning Serana into a martyr—she wouldn’t allow it.

She says as much, and Valerica eyes her coolly. “And just how do you plan to stop him?”

Eres’ jaw works. She does not look at Serana. “I’ll kill him, if I have to.”

Valerica shakes her head, tsking under her breath. “If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I originally expected. Don’t you think I weighed that option before I enacted my plans?”

What little patience Eres has dwindles to nothing. “Your plans? And just what did Serana think of your plans? Did you even tell her what you planned to do? How long you planned on keeping her locked away? Would you just have kept her sealed in that tomb for eternity?”

Valerica’s face contorts into a snarl. “I won’t be lectured by the likes of you, _Vigilant_ ,” she spits the word like a curse. “You care nothing for Serana or our plight.” Eres wants to reach through that barrier and throttle her. “You’re here because we’re abominations in your mind. Evil creatures that need to be destroyed. Nothing else.”

Eres rocks back on her heels, and looks down her nose at Valerica and her petty anger. “Funny,” she says plainly. “Serana believes in me. Why can’t you?”

Valerica’s snarl morphs into a puzzled frown, and she turns to look at her daughter. “Serana? Surely, I raised you to be smarter than this.”

“You don’t understand,” Serana insists. “She found me in that tomb that _you_ left me in. She helped me get back home. And when I found out what Father was planning to do and I went to her for help, she answered my call without question. She’s saved my life a dozen times over. I trust her.” Serana pauses. “I have more reason to trust her than I have to trust _you_.”

Eres almost pities Valerica for the wounded look that appears on her face. The woman reels back, looking like Serana might well have slapped her.

“All that I have done,” Valerica says lowly, pitiably, “all that I have done, I have done for your sake, my daughter.”

“I know,” Serana presses her hand gently upon the barrier, and it hums mutinously where her skin presses against it. “I know, Mother. But you didn’t even include me in your plans. You didn’t trust me. You should have trusted me.”

“I… worried,” Valerica admits, wringing her hands. Suddenly, she seems less of the fierce, overprotective matriarch of a legendary vampiric clan, and more of a simple mother who worries for her kin. “That Harkon may have poisoned your mind, as he almost did mine. I should have included you in my plans, you are right. I am… sorry,” she says haltingly, “for the pain I have caused you. But I—”

“I know,” Serana smiles gently back at her. “You were just trying to protect me. I get it, Mother. Just—next time something like this happens, just tell me what you have in mind. I’ve always—I always just wanted to be close to you.”

Valerica smiles, too, and Eres wonders if vampires are able to cry as mortals can. Valerica looks like she might.

“Speaking of,” Eres says, “I’m sorry to interrupt the tender moment, but how do we get this barrier down so we can get the scroll and also do you have any idea on how to retrieve a fragment of a soul?”

Valerica looks at her, blinks, and raises a brow. Then she looks at Serana. “You trapped her _soul_?”

“Part of it,” Serana shrugs. “It was the only thing I could think of, aside from turning her.”

Valerica’s other brow rises to join the first, and she looks – _impressed_. “You’ve come quite far, it seems.” She muses. But then she looks back to Eres. “The barrier can only be dropped by defeating the Gatekeepers of this place—but you won’t have much time. Once the barrier drops, they will know, and He will come.”

“He?”

“The dragon, Durnehviir – he guards this place. Watches over it for the Ideal Masters. When the last Gatekeeper is felled, you must make it back here as quickly as you can to grab the scroll. He will surely come to investigate, and we don’t want to be here when he does.”

“Noted,” Eres feels dread pooling in her stomach. In this place? With nothing but empty space and this barren landscape? A _dragon_? If it’s true, and there is a dragon watching over this place, they will likely be forced to fight it – there will be nowhere for them to hide.

“And the soul?” Serana asks.

“I can only imagine that the essence of her soul must exist somewhere within this plane,” Valerica tells them. “Though where it might be, there is no knowing. You, however,” and she looks at Eres, “you should feel the tug upon your own soul, reaching out for the rest of your essence. It will be drawn to its likeness, in its effort to become whole once more. It is most likely near the structures that house the gems—” Valerica points, and Eres looks over her shoulder – at the very same kind of gem that Serana had dragged Eres away from just hours ago. “They are protected by malevolent spirits, and you must be careful. Approaching the wrong one may rip the rest of your soul from your body.”

“Wonderful,” Eres sighs. “Is there any way to know which one is safe for me to approach?”

Valerica shrugs helplessly. “Whichever one doesn’t make you weaker to approach, I would imagine.”

“You’ve been an incredible help. Truly.” Eres deadpans. Serana elbows her in the side, and she gasps around a sharp lance of pain in her ribs.

“Be nice,” Serana mutters, under her breath. She looks only vaguely apologetic for the blow. “We’ll be back.”

“Serana?” Valerica frowns. “You’re going with her?”

“Well, I certainly can’t let her go alone,” Serana replies easily, and tugs Eres back down the stairs.

Eres does not miss the strange, calculating look that Valerica gives her, nor the way the woman’s eyes shift between the two of them as though she is trying to piece a puzzle together.

She does not know what Valerica sees – and she is not sure she wants to. Right now, she doesn’t have the capacity to think about it. She has a soul to look for, after all.

Only when they are well out of Valerica’s earshot does Serana turn to her, a measuring look in her eyes.

“What?”

“You’re a Vigilant?” Serana asks, almost accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Eres blinks, long and slow. It feels as though her thoughts are moving through molasses. “What?” She repeats – and a moment later, she manages to process Serana’s question. Something like dread, or maybe guilt, sinks low in her stomach.

“Oh,” she says, and looks away. “Yes, I am. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. Not even most of the Dawnguard know.”

“I’m not the Dawnguard,” Serana points out tersely. “You didn’t think I needed to know that you hunt down Daedra in your spare time?”

“What’s the difference?” Eres scowls off into the distance. It’s her fault, she knows it, she should have said something sooner, but she can’t help but feel like Serana is attacking her. “Dawnguard or Vigilant, neither of them are too fond of vampires. It’s not that far of a stretch.”

“There’s a huge difference between the two, Eres.”

Eres sighs. “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t relevant. At what point would my being a Vigilant have made any difference? I released you from your tomb. I got you home. I’ve helped you this far. Finding out I’ve been a Vigilant the whole time doesn’t change that.”

Serana stops walking, and so Eres stops, too. Serana moves in front of her, so that Eres can’t turn away from her.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Serana allows. “Not really. But I would rather have heard it from you than to have my mother tell me something I don’t know about you two seconds after she met you.”

Eres nods. “I get it,” she says, and she does. Really, she does. “I’d have told you if I thought you needed to know.” Serana’s brows come sharply together, and Eres adds, “It didn’t have anything to do with what we were doing. I wasn’t acting as a Vigilant when I found you, or really at any time since I’ve met you. I’ve been working for the Dawnguard – that much is true.”

Serana’s frown only deepens. “ _’That much’_ is true? Just how much have you lied about?”

Nothing – not really. She had never quite lied to Serana’s face, she’d just… omitted some things. “I haven’t lied to you. I just haven’t told you everything.” She shrugs. “There’s plenty you haven’t told me either, I’m sure.”

“I would if you asked,” Serana says. A strange look passes over her face, and her eyes turn distant. Serana’s lips pull into a frown, and she averts her gaze, her brows knitting together. She takes a step back.

“I would if you asked.” Serana repeats, so quietly that even Eres’ elven hearing struggles to pick up on it. Serana turns away from her, walking away, and Eres can only stare pensively after her retreating form.

Why does she get the feeling she’s missed something? 

“We should try and find your soul first, before we take on the Gatekeepers. Once we start killing them, that dragon will likely take notice.”

Eres nods silently. The air between them feels unusually heavy, and she doesn’t think it’s just the atmosphere of the Soul Cairn around them.

“Do you feel anything? Any tugging?”

Eres can’t help the snort that escapes her, and Serana groans out loud.

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Sorry, no,” Eres manages, still thoroughly amused at the wording. “No tugging anywhere.”

Serana’s nose crinkles at her in a half-grimace. “Don’t say it that way.”

Eres shoots the woman a grin. The tension between them dissolves almost as quickly as it had come, but Eres doesn’t feel right making light of the situation.

“For what it’s worth, I did mean what I said back in your mother’s laboratory.” Serana looks at her. “I do trust you. I wouldn’t have agreed to you taking my _soul_ if I didn’t. It was never about keeping things from you – I just didn’t think it mattered.”

“Well, it does,” Serana says shortly. She looks away, peering out at the tall spires in the distance. “You matter to me.”

“At least you’re admitting it now,” Eres muses, only to be met with Serana rolling her eyes at her.

A moment later, Serana’s hand snaps out to catch Eres at her collar, keeping her from continuing forward.

“What?”

Serana points up. Eres follows the gesture with her eyes, and far above them is a floating, dark purple gem. The air around it almost seems to… _wobble_ , as if distorted by the gem’s aura. Perhaps a hundred feet from where they stand there is the ruins of what appears to be a building, with stairs leading upward – and directly to a landing situated beneath the gem, Eres would guess.

“Is that the one?” Eres wonders.

“You tell me,” Serana glances at her. “You’re the one who led us here.”

Eres frowns. She can’t recall leading them anywhere – she’d just been walking aimlessly. Her mind had hardly been focused on where they were going. “What do I have to do?”

Serana worries at her lip, looking up at the gem with some trepidation. “It could be the right one,” she says slowly. “Or, it could be drawing you toward it to drain you, like the one we saw earlier. It doesn’t feel any different to me. How do you feel?”

“Same as before,” Eres tells her. “A bit dizzy.” Especially when she looks at it. “Can you go up there and get it for me?”

Serana scoffs. “Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. I don’t think I can just bring your soul to you like a bag of groceries.”

Eres raises a brow at the reference—grocery shopping is not something she would imagine a vampire to be familiar with. “Groceries?”

If vampires could blush, she thinks Serana might have. “I read it in a book once,” Serana deflects. “Just. Take a couple steps closer and let me know if you feel anything strange. If you start feeling weaker, I’ll pull you out.”

Eres doesn’t know if that’s the smartest idea. How do they even know that the drain would be gradual, if this was the wrong gem? Who was to say that it won’t just sap her instantaneously once she’s in range?

Still, it’s not as though she has any other option.

Eres takes one step forward, and then another, and another. She nearly reaches the stairs before she feels anything at all, but she feels it – a strange tugging sensation that she could not put into words if she tried. It felt like something inside of her was being drawn outward, coaxed towards the gem itself.

She stops, and waits. Serana hovers at her side, one of her hands resting on Eres’ opposite shoulder, like she plans to throw the girl backward if she must.

But the tug does not make her weaker. It does not make her stronger, either, but she does not feel as though it drains her.

Eres starts to climb the stairs, Serana at her side. Her legs burn to climb them, but strangely the ache feels distant and otherworldly, as if only the ghost of discomfort.

Then the gem is directly above her, and she can hear the wind as it surges around them. Eres had wondered at the wind she’d felt before, when they’d arrived – how could a place such as the Soul Cairn have _weather_ without a true sky? Without a sun or moon to drive it? The wind, Eres realized, came from the draw of the gem, sucking greedily at the air around it.

Eres reaches out, lifting herself up on the tips of her toes, and just barely manages to press the very tips of her fingers against the smooth, warm surface of the gem—

Warmth floods into her body all at once, rushing from the very tips of her fingers all the way down to her toes. The chill of the air seems like no more than an afterthought.

Her mind clears, and she stumbles backward, her back colliding with Serana’s chest.

Hands grip at her shoulders. “Well?” Serana prompts.

Her voice sounds _incredibly_ clear—and incredibly close. Eres shivers, and not because of the cold. She quickly extracts herself from Serana’s embrace and turns to face her.

“I think it worked.” At the very least, it doesn’t feel like the ground might swallow her anymore, and her head doesn’t spin when she changes its position.

“Oh,” Serana blinks, looking surprised. “That was… surprisingly easy.” She frowns a bit. “That worries me.”

“Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth,” Eres mutters, and she leads the way back down the stairs. One of the spires Valerica had pointed them to is nearby, and she wants nothing more than to leave the Soul Cairn as soon as possible.

“I think I’ve read that book,” Serana murmurs absently, following after her.

“Of course you have.”

When the last Gatekeeper falls, there is a _shift_ in the air around them. Eres can feel the dispelling of the ward surrounding the fortress Valerica is trapped in even from where she stands atop the last spire, just east of the fortress.

In the distance, the shimmering edges of the ward flicker once, twice, and then unravels from the center outward on either side like the drawing of a massive, sky-high curtain.

“I think that did it.” Serana says.

“You think?” Eres turns, and starts taking the stairs downward two at a time.

Just as they reach the bottom, Eres hears it – a distant, earth-shattering roar. She takes off at a sprint, Serana at her heels, as the sound of the dragon’s roars grows ever closer.

“Do you think we can make it?”

Damn her, Serana doesn’t even sound winded.

“Less talking,” Eres manages, even as she pulls her bow from her back – just in case. “More running.”

Serana looks at her, frowns, and says, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for wh—” The world blurs past her eyes, wind rushes past her, and she only just comes to the conclusion that Serana is _carrying_ her before, at once, everything comes to an abrupt and dizzying halt.

Eres feels the ground back beneath her feet again and sways unsteadily. The fortress rises up around her, and Valerica calls to them both, beckoning them inside.

“Don’t _ever_ do that again,” Eres groans out the words, feeling ill. Still, she turns, and follows Valerica within the great doors that lead inside the fortress—

Just as the flapping of wings beats overhead, and a roar seems to shake the very ground beneath them.

“Sorry,” Serana says again, but she doesn’t look at all apologetic. She raises both hands, head tilted upwards toward the sky, and the air cools and frosts around them as she holds a spell in either hand. “We stand a better chance three versus one than being caught out there by ourselves.”

Eres wants to protest that idea, but that is when she sees the dragon as it lowers itself onto the far side of the fortress’s battlements. “Massive” is not the word for it—he is positively gargantuan, and the weight of him landing upon the building causes the stone to crack and shift beneath his clawed feet.

Eres has seen one such dragon before – or something close to it. And she doesn’t have fond memories of _that_ encounter.

This one is not the abyssal black of Molag Bal’s dragon-like form, nor does it have the pincered head. But it is easily the size of a house, and from its greyish, scaled hide drips what appears to be some kind of greenish sludge.

Somehow, the dragon’s scales seem to be sloughing off of him at a constant rate, only to be reformed just as quickly. The effect makes Eres’ disgust nearly outweigh her anxiety of fighting a _literal dragon_.

Ahead of her, Valerica murmurs the soft intonations of an incantation, and raises her arms to the sky. From every corner, the shuffling clatter of bones rises into the air as she raises the dead around them.

Above them, Durnehviir roars as if offended that she would even dare to rise against him. He beats his wings and lifts himself into the sky above them, a moment after Serana releases the spells she had been holding – lances of solid ice fly through the air above, slicing through one of his wings – but the dragon rises into the air all the same.

Eres hears Serana curse beside her, and feels much the same. That dragon’s ability to fly here, within the Soul Cairn, must not follow the usual rules of logic that exist within Tamriel. Shooting at his wings will not bring him down.

The bonemen raised by Valerica brandish their own bows, and begin to fire with abandon. They have little in the way of effect, but they serve as good enough distractions when Durnehviir swoops down to rake at them with his great claws, swiping them back into useless heaps of bones cluttering the ground.

“We have to get him to ground somehow!” Serana shouts over the chaos, and Eres can only just hear Valerica’s sarcastic, biting reply.

They can’t fight him like this—his flight pattern is too erratic, too quick, and even when Eres tries to predict where he might be next, he seems all too familiar with dodging the arrows she and the other bonemen send at him.

Serana is right – they have to find a way to get him to ground. But with his seemingly unending regeneration, Eres doubts that any attacks they aim at his wings could bring him down. Even looking at them, she can see that they are only barely held together by the webbing – there are tears and gashes all throughout his wings as it is, and none of them have seemed to have any effect on his ability to fly.

Durnehviir drops once more onto the far side of the battlements, tilting his head back to roar at the sky. All around them, the bones of the dead shift and draw together, rising from the ground, brandishing whatever weapons they can find near them. It is not so different from Valerica or Serana’s own necromancy, and it is perhaps only their combined effort that allows them to not be overwhelmed by the horde Durnehviir summons to assault them.

The dragon bellows out another earth-shattering roar as he takes flight, and the gears of Eres’ racing thoughts shift suddenly into perfect alignment.

She has no idea if it will work, but it is all that she can think of.

“Keep him occupied!” She shouts, over the din of clashing weapons and clattering bones and the roar of the dragon and the wind and everything else around them, and she only barely hears Serana’s incredulous, _“What?”_ as she leans down to tear off her boots.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Just trust me!” Eres pulls off her other boot, left only in the conventional leather wraps of her people, throws her bow over her shoulder, and takes off at a run towards the nearest wall.

If there is anything the Bosmer are well known for besides their gift with archery, it is their ability to _climb_.

Eres hits the wall running, scaling the wall with undue ease – the ruined stone of the fortress has become rough and uneven, jagged in places and crumbling in others, and only makes it all the easier for her to find a foothold with which to climb higher, and higher, until her hands close around the top of the battlement walls. She heaves herself over it with some effort.

A moment later, the stone beneath her rumbles and shakes as Durnehviir lands once more – in the very same place he had before. The walls where he has made his perch are more sturdy than those surrounding it, and gives him a perfect angle to see the extent of what has become their battlefield – and it is this predictability that she must rely on.

She ducks behind the parapet to wait for him to take off once more and when he does, she crouches low and moves as fast as she can, hoping that he won’t notice her absence.

More than that, she hopes Serana and Valerica can manage without her for a few minutes – it will take her time to draw the rune, and even longer to infuse it with the mana required for her to power it. But if it works—if it works, she just might be able to ground him long enough to kill him.

When Eres finds herself upon the wall that Durnehviir has made his habit of perching upon, she throws her bag from her back and digs through it until she has a lesser soul gem in each hand – their surfaces are dull and grey without the presence of a soul within them, but she needs only the dust she can make from it to draw her rune.

She presses the point of the gem against the ground, and begins to draw from memory.

This is a rune she is all too familiar with – she had her own experiences with it once before, and she had never forgotten it since. The gem flakes where she presses it against the stone, leaving white dust and scratches within the stone where she pulls it against the hard surface.

Eres makes certain to remain on the outside of its empowering circle – she has made that mistake before.

Durnehviir lands once more before she finishes, and she ducks behind a parapet and waits with bated breath until he leaves her. From her vantage, she can see nothing of the battle below, and can only judge by the sound of magic being thrown from below – the hissing _shish, shish_ of Serana’s ice spikes, the din of dimensional rifts as Valerica summons the dead to heed her calling – to know that they are well without her.

Eres closes the circle at last, and pulls from her bag one last gem – a gem almost as large as her forearm, the same blackish-purple as the gem that had held her own soul within it.

She had meant to keep this and return it to Fellburg, use it to power the magical wards and constructs her grandfather had put in place before her – but she will have to find another. Her own power alone will not be enough to trap the dragon above.

Eres presses the gem against the edge of the rune, places her hand upon it, and allows her own mana to filter through it – and into the rune drawn beneath it.

The din of the battle below fades into the background. She closes her eyes, and focuses on pulling the power from the gem, siphoning it and intertwining it with her own, pushing it to fill the rune with its power.

A roar sounds from above, and the flapping of powerful wings upon the air.

Eres pulls away, ducks again behind the parapet, and waits.

Durnehviir drops onto his perch, roaring his displeasure –

And then his roar stutters with surprise. Eres feels the rune activate, pulling at her senses, and she watches from her own perch as the bright, whitish-blue arcs of mana erupt from the rune beneath the dragon and wrap around his limbs, one by one.

Durnehviir’s wings work to lift him from the trap, but the chains hold fast, and, with his struggle, draw him ever closer to the ground as they tighten.

His head swings towards her, and his eye narrows when it lands upon her figure, stepping out from behind the parapet. Even the sound of his breath rumbles in the air around him.

_“Qahnaarin_ ,” his voice rumbles, the deep bass of it rattling against her ribs within her chest until it seems that her heart beats along with it.

Wordlessly, she plunges Dawnbreaker into his exposed neck, and with considerable effort, slits his throat open.

Durnehviir does not bleed – but his eye dims, and the slitted black pupil dilates and swallows the green of his eye whole. His form sags against the magical chains that bind him, and almost seems to dissolve into the air itself.

Within minutes, it is like he had never been there at all.

The chains drop to the ground, and then shatter. The glowing edges of the rune dim. The black gem resting at its center dissolves into dust.

And finally, all is quiet – save from the rushing of the wind drawn by the gems of the Ideal Masters in the distance.

“Eres?” Serana calls, from below.

Eres peers over the edge of the parapet, and waves down to her. “I’m fine! Give me a moment!”

She feels weary, and bone-tired. But she makes her way back to the part of the wall she had scaled, and slowly makes her way back down to the ground. Would it have killed them to put in some gods-damned stairs?

“What the hell was that?” Serana asks, when she drops down at last, handing Eres her abandoned boots.

“A binding rune,” Eres answers plainly. “I told you I knew a few things.”

Valerica approaches, too, looking almost as exhausted as Eres feels. She imagines it must be difficult for a vampire to fight after living so long without feeding. She hopes the woman isn’t looking for a donation.

“That is quite advanced,” Valerica notes, and she actually looks impressed. “Were you a student of the College?”

“No,” Eres straightens. “I had a tutor, back home. When I was younger. That rune is how I found out you’re not supposed to stand in the middle of it when you draw it.”

While Eres wished she had been taught more practical battle magic, that experience, at least, was not one she was likely to forget. She had barely reached the age where her tutors had thought she was ready to learn more advanced magic – but they’d been so stingy with what they deigned worthy of teaching her.

She’d stolen one of Niu’s tomes and decided to try teaching herself some of the runes she’d found there. The first she’d found had been that very same binding rune she’d used with Durnehviir—only, when she had drawn it the first time, she had closed the circle while kneeling at its center, and the rune had activated with _her_ as its target.

Eres had been bound, trapped in those chains for hours before Niu had found her in the corner of the library, and then Niu had left her there for a few hours more just to teach her a lesson about messing around with magic she didn’t understand. Eres had gotten _quite_ familiar with that rune after spending so much time with nothing to do but stare at it.

Go figure, one of her most embarrassing memories had actually been useful for once.

“The scroll?” She prompts, not wanting to recount that story aloud – at least, not in front of Valerica, who seems to have only just decided she is not completely and utterly incompetent.

“This way,” Valerica leads them into an alcove, within which she has the scroll placed within an ornate box sealed with her own magic.

Serana picks it up, and straps it to sit beside the other on her back with a strong leather thong at the top and bottom. “Thank you, Mother.” She turns to Eres. “We only have one scroll left to find, now.”

“You should return to Tamriel at once, and ensure that your father does not find it first.”

Serana frowns. “You’re not coming with us?”

“I cannot,” Valerica shakes her head. “Were I to return to Tamriel now, it would only increase the chances that Harkon would get ahold of the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour. I must remain here.”

Eres must admit, there is logic to her statement. “When this is all over, we can come back for you.”

Valerica’s answering smile is tight. “What happens to me does not matter. Serana is all that I care for.” Her eyes narrow. “I am entrusting you to keep her safe for the time being, Vigilant, while our interests are aligned.”

“I will,” Eres answers. “For now, and for as long as she wants afterward – even after we’ve taken care of this. Whether you believe me or not.”

“Hm,” Valerica gives her a measuring look. “We will see about that.”

Serana and Valerica do not hug each other as one might have expected of long lost family to do, but they do send each other parting smiles as they turn to leave.

“How do you feel?” Eres asks, when they are nearly to the entrance of the fort, and well out of Valerica’s earshot. “After finding her?”

“Conflicted,” Serana answers honestly. “I don’t know how I thought I’d feel, but…” She sighs. “I feel better, in some ways. I …had a lot that I needed to get off my chest, and it felt good to be honest with her. But I still don’t feel right to just leave her behind like this.”

“We’ll come back for her later,” Eres repeats. “We won’t leave her in here to rot, if we can help it.”

“She won’t rot,” Serana says, amused. “But thank you. I appreciate that.”

Eres pushes open the door, and promptly comes to a halt.

Durnehviir is perched just beyond the stairs of the fortress gate, waiting. Watching.

_“Stay your weapons, Qahnaarin_ ,” the beast speaks – but his mouth does not form words as a mortal’s might. Instead, his mouth opens, and it seems his Voice simply emerges from his throat fully formed, deep and guttural and as rumbling as the sound of his breathing. _“I would speak with you.”_

Eres, cautiously, steps out from the shadow of the door to allow it to shut behind her. Serana sidesteps closer to her, one of her hands hovering at her waist, all too ready to draw her dagger once more.

“I thought you were dead,” Eres says slowly, her eyes raking over his decaying form. He looks the same as he had before she’d killed him.

_“Cursed,”_ the dragon breathes, _“not dead. Doomed to exist in this form for eternity. Trapped between_ laas _and_ dinok _—between life and death._ ”

Eres glances at Serana, but the woman merely stares at Durnehviir – awed, and wary.

“Why do you want to speak with me?”

_“My claws have rendered the flesh of innumerable foes in my lifetime – and in_ this _life, as well,”_ the dragon shifts his weight, and there is the sound of flesh falling to the ground as his scales slough from his hide and reform. _“Never have I been bested on the field of battle. I therefore honor-name you ‘Qahnaarin’. ‘Vanquisher’, in your tongue.”_

“…Thank you?” Eres is, by all accounts, baffled. “You were… formidable?”

The dragon chuckles. It is a strange, uncomfortable sound halfway to a rumbling growl within his chest.

_“Your words do me great honor. My desire to speak with you was born from the result of our battle, Qahnaarin. I merely wish to respectfully ask a favor of you.”_

“What favor?” Eres asks, warily.

_“For countless years, I’ve roamed the Soul Cairn in unintended service to the Ideal Masters. Before this, I roamed the skies above Tamriel. I wish to return there.”_

Eres glances at the portal in the distance – the very same portal she and Serana had come through, and wonders if he could fit through it.

“What’s stopping you?”

Probably not – even if he managed to squeeze through it, there was still the tower to contend with. And Harkon. They probably wouldn’t be able to hide a giant dragon suddenly appearing in a wing of the castle, whether it was closed off or not.

_“I fear that my time here has taken its toll upon me. I share a bond with this dreaded place. If I ventured far from the Soul Cairn, my strength would begin to wane until I was no more._ ”

“So what does that have to do with me? What could I do to help you?”

_“I will place my name with you, and grant you the right to call upon me from Tamriel. Do for me this simple honor and I will fight at your side as your_ Grah-Zeymahzin _—your ally—and teach you my Thu’um_.”

Eres isn’t even sure what a _Thu’um_ is.

“That’s it? I just have to say your name in Tamriel?”

_“Trivial in your mind perhaps. But to me, it would mean a great deal.”_ Durnehviir shifts, rising tall from his perch. _“I do not require an immediate answer from you, Qahnaarin. Simply speak my name to the heavens when you feel the time is right.”_

“How did you end up here?”

_“There was a time when I called Tamriel my home. But those days have long since passed. In that time, the dovah roamed the skies, vying for their small slices of territory that resulted in immense, and ultimately fatal, battles.”_

“And you were part of that?”

_“I was, for a time. But unlike some of my brethren, I sought solutions outside the norm in order to maintain my superiority. I began to explore what the dovah call ‘_ Alok-Dilon’ _, the ancient forbidden art that your people call Necromancy. The Ideal Masters assured me that my powers would be unmatched; that I could raise legions of the undead. In return, I was to serve them as a Keeper until the death of the one who calls herself Valerica_.”

Serana hisses in sympathy. “I’m guessing they didn’t tell you she was immortal.”

_“I discovered too late that the Ideal Masters favor deception over honor and had no intention of releasing me from my binding. They had control of my mind, but fortunately they could not possess my soul.”_

“So – you’re free now? With the barrier broken?”

_“I am afraid not. I have been here too long, Qahnaarin. The Soul Cairn has become part of me. I could never fully call Tamriel my home again, or I would surely perish. I only hope that you will allow me the precious moments of time there through your call.”_

In the distance, the portal calls for her. Eres knows she must leave, and leave as soon as possible, but there is one last thing she wants to know.

“Why do you call me ‘Qahnaarin’?”

_“In my language, Qahnaarin is the Vanquisher, the one who has bested a fellow dovah—dragon—in battle.”_

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not a dragon.”

The dragon’s massive head tilts to one side, and his green eyes regard her carefully.

_“Forgive me,”_ he says at last, after a long moment of consideration, as though he has just noticed that her form is not that of a dragon, but that of a mortal Mer. “ _My instinct was to grant you this title. I am uncertain why.”_

And Durnehviir’s great wings beat at the air, and he begins to lift himself high above their heads.

_“Perhaps one day, Qahnaarin, the reason why will become clear to both of us.”_

And then, with a final, parting roar, he leaves them.

Serana looks at her, and after a tense beat of silence, says:

“I didn’t know dragons could talk.”

“Me neither.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of here.” A beat. “ _Qahnaarin_.”

Eres groans. Why is she always catching the attention of these—otherworldly beings? Meridia, Stendarr—Hircine too, once upon a time, _Molag Bal—_ she’s had about enough of this to last a lifetime.

Still— _Qahnaarin?_ Fellow Dovah? Durnehviir had said he didn’t know why he’d called her that, but she hadn’t missed the look in his eye—she’s almost certain that he knew something _she_ didn’t.

She isn’t sure she ever wants to find out.


	10. Discerning the Transmundane

ACT III  
CHAPTER X   
DISCERNING THE TRANSMUNDANE

Eres has never been as far north as Winterhold before, and as the air gets progressively colder, she understands why no one bothers to come here except mages looking for a safe place to practice their magic.

Winterhold, by all accounts, is little more than a ruin. The small city – if it can even be called such – has as many abandoned, dilapidated homes as functioning ones, and with the biting cold of the weather this far north, Eres cannot see a single soul meandering about the town’s main road aside from those unlucky few guards who patrol the streets. The midday sun shines high overhead, and still the air is far too cold for anyone to brave the outdoors unless they must.

“Well, this is…” Serana sweeps her gaze over the city, and her shoulders sag a bit. “Dreary.”

Eres peers further down the main course and sees what must be a bridge—this is, she imagines, the great arch they’d seen on the road approaching Winterhold that leads to the College. She hopes they have some kind of heating there.

“Were you expecting something different?”

“Yes, actually,” Serana admits. A passing guard gives her a long, measuring look. Once he passes, she pulls her hood further down over her eyes. “It was different when I was— _before_ , you know.”

“You’ve been here before, have you?”

“No, but I heard of it. Read about it. I think Mother came here once or twice, before.” Serana shrugs. “There’s no shortage of mages in the clan. I just remember hearing of all this—this _splendor_. From what I heard, the College was a sight to behold. It was the pride of Winterhold, and now…”

“Not quite so much anymore, it seems.” Eres takes the first few steps onto that narrow bridge, and shivers full-bodily at the biting crosswind that assaults her.

“Halt!” An Altmer woman dressed in robes lined with fur – and little else, Eres notices, steps into their path. “The way to the College is closed, and the path will not open for you. Turn back, or state your business.”

Eres shares a look with Serana, frowning. She had imagined there would be some security of course, but _closed_? They had no leads aside from the College. If they couldn’t get in, then—

“Your _business_ ,” repeats the Altmer woman.

“I am looking for information on the Elder Scrolls,” Eres replies finally, carefully. “I’ve heard there’s no better place than the College to seek it out. Is that still true?”

The woman gives her a cool, calculating look. “That may be,” she says slowly. “But we cannot simply open our doors to any who wishes to glean from the resources we have so meticulously collected.” The woman laces her hands behind her back, and looks down her nose at Eres. The posture is all too familiar—reminding her sharply of her own tutors when she was a child. “Have you any talent in the arcane arts, _Lurae_?”

Eres’ brows furrow. She does not know the word this Altmer calls her, but she knows the language – it is similar to that of the Bosmeri, of which she sadly knows very little. But, she gets the feeling that whatever this woman had called her had not been complimentary.

“Some,” she tells her. “Mostly practical magic – wards, seals, runes, enchantments. That sort of thing. I’ve never had the focus for battle magic.”

“Oh?” The woman raises a brow, her curiosity clearly piqued. “We could help you with that – if what you say is true.” Her eyes turn then to Serana. “And you?”

“The opposite, actually,” Serana says, smiling disarmingly. She raises a hand, palm up, and calls forth the frosted air of her most common spell, that of the frozen spike which Eres has seen impale more than its share of their enemies. “I’ve some training with battle magic. Less so with anything more complex.”

_Liar_ , Eres thinks, remembering the portal – and Serana’s necromancy. As much as the world despises necromancy – and Eres, to be honest, is one of those – she must admit that the level of knowledge and practice required to master such an art is far beyond most mages to ever manage. Necromancy is as much an art as it is a challenge, a bending of reality itself – the control over life and death.

The woman nods, seemingly satisfied. “And you? Have you a demonstration of your abilities?”

Eres produces for the woman the year-old parchment she has used to communicate with Fellburg, and demonstrates its uses. Though there is no message for the woman to read when she activates it, the woman can clearly understand its usage, and seems particularly interested in the finer details.

“Very well,” the woman says, leaning back from inspecting Eres’ own little demonstration. “I will trust that you have good intentions. My name is Faralda. I will escort you into the College. You will wish to speak with Mirabelle Ervine—she is our Master Wizard, serving directly under our Arch-Mage. She will be able to confirm your enrollment.”

Eres opens her mouth to protest – they weren’t _enrolling_ , they just needed information – but Serana cuts her a sharp look with eyes that appear green beneath her illusion, and Eres quiets.

Once they have crossed the bridge – one that Eres thinks they should at least _attempt_ to fix before it crumbles away entirely – Faralda waves the main gate open, and deposits them at the entrance with little fanfare. She merely points into the direction of a small group of robed mages, loitering near a large fountain with a great stone statue in front of it, lifting his hands up high into the air. The fountain seems to glow with an inner light, and that light reaches in a spiraling column from the fountain to as far into the sky as Eres can see.

Besides the fountain, a small, petite woman stands with her arms crossed, staring unimpressed up at a tall, Altmer man.

“I believe I’ve made myself rather clear,” the woman states, her tone brooking no room for arguments.

“Yes, of course,” the man postures, bowing his head slightly in feigned reverence. “I’m simply trying to understand the reasoning behind the decision.”

“You may be used to the Empire bowing to your every whim, but I’m afraid you’ll find the Thalmor receive no such treatment here. You are a guest of the College, here at the pleasure of the Arch-Mage. I hope you appreciate the opportunity.”

The Altmer man’s lips stretch into a tight, practiced smile. “Yes, of course. The Arch-Mage has my thanks.”

“Very good. Then we’re done here.”

The man bows his head once more, and slinks away with his chin held high. Despite the verbal lashing the small woman had given him, he seems determined to leave with his dignity intact.

“What are the Thalmor doing here at the College?” Serana wonders, quietly enough that Eres barely hears it.

The woman turns, and sees them. “Welcome to the College. I don’t recognize you. New students?” She asks, and her voice is not quite as cold as it had been when speaking to the man.

Eres pulls Serana after her, determined to keep her close in an area where she might not be so welcome.

“Not quite,” Eres replies. “We _were_ told to find you, though. We’re looking for information on the Elder Scrolls. You are Mirabelle Ervine, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” Mirabelle nods slowly. She seems pleased at least with Eres’ manners, but the look she directs as Serana makes Eres uncomfortable all the same. “Come with me.”

Mirabelle does not wait for an affirmation. She merely spins on her heel and expects them to follow dutifully.

The woman leads them inside – where it is blissfully warm, thank the Divines, and in the distance Eres can hear the muffled tones of a man speaking patiently with who she assumes are his students. She hears something of wards and spells and the complaints of entitled mages who wish to learn something flashier – and then Mirabelle is leading them through another door, and up a set of stairs that spiral upwards.

The next landing opens into a long, wide room that is remarkably quiet save for the rustling of parchment and the occasional scratching of quills. Directly in front of them, from the entrance, a map of Skyrim stretches across the far wall, with an astrolabe as tall as her waist and twice as wide glowing gently beneath it, turning ever so slowly to reflect the time.

Looking to her right, the room opens into a massive library of several floors worth, with another spiraling staircase in the very center that, by all accounts, seems to be attached to _nothing_ – somehow supporting itself. There are a few students working at small tables, or perusing the selections of tomes and scrolls, and behind the desk at the very far end of the room is a singular Orsimer man, looking distinctly out of place but _very_ attentive.

Mirabelle leads them to a dimly lit corner – away from the prying eyes of this Orcish man and any student who might find it within them to eavesdrop, and with an almost casual flick of her wrist, Eres sees the flicker of mana in the air.

But even though she had seen it with her own eyes, she has no idea which spell Mirabelle has used.

“They won’t hear us now.” Mirabelle says, answering her unspoken question. “A simple soundproof ward. Quite useful for privacy.”

Impressed, Eres wonders if the woman could teach her. Moreover, she wonders if the ward must be stationary, or if one could use a spell such as that one to silence all sound around them – like, perhaps, when attempting to sneak up on someone and get the upper hand.

Then Mirabelle turns to Serana. “You may drop the illusion now, Vampire.”

Eres glances sharply at Serana. Serana looks at Eres, then at Mirabelle, and wordlessly allows the illusion over her appearance to drop away. The glow of her unnaturally red eyes return, her skin turns just a shade or two paler, and, Eres knows, when Serana speaks, her fangs will too be visible.

“How did you know?” Eres asks.

“Please,” the woman scoffs. “If I could not recognize a low-level illusion when I saw one, I would not have gained the position I have now.” She narrows her eyes at Serana, and says, “You have taken quite a risk to walk into the College with naught but a glamor. Did you expect that no one would notice?”

Serana, for her part, shrugs carelessly. “I’d rather not make a scene if I don’t have to. I didn’t think anyone would bother to look closely.”

“Yes, well,” Mirabelle straightens. “Security is something we must take rather seriously here.” Then she turns her gaze to Eres. “And you—what is a Vigilant doing in the company of a Vampire?”

Eres lets out a huff. “How is it you can tell just by looking?”

“That horn of yours,” Mirabelle points. “The Horn of Stendarr is a sacred artifact, especially to those who follow Him. I’ve not met a single Stendarr worshipper who would ever think themselves worthy to wear it so boldly upon their person—unless, of course, they were a Vigilant who held some status within the Order.” Eres raises a brow. “Also,” Mirabelle adds, shrugging, “I’ve contacts in Windhelm who mentioned you. The Keeper of the Stendarr, a Bosmer, who carries the artifact of a Daedric Prince.”

Eres shifts, suddenly far too aware of the weight of Dawnbreaker at her back. “We’re only here to get some information on the Elder Scrolls. We’re not trying to cause any trouble.”

Mirabelle looks at the both of them shrewdly. “Yes. I do wonder how someone might come to that conclusion—a vampire, masquerading as human, escorted by the Keeper of the Vigil? One can only imagine what sort of nefarious deeds those such as yourselves might get into among such…precious artifacts,” and her eyes slide to the conspicuous scroll upon Serana’s back. “You’ve an Elder Scroll in your possession already, it seems. For what reason do you seek information here, when you seem to have had such luck elsewhere?”

“I do apologize for the dishonesty,” Serana begins, her tone carefully practiced and level—the markings of a noble girl all too used to navigating her way through tense political disagreements. “But I didn’t think the people here would take too kindly to a vampire walking amongst them.”

“You would be surprised,” Mirabelle deadpans, raising a single brow. “You will find that we mages are not quite so quick to immediately discount someone based upon their appearance. Those of us with the talent for magic know all too well what it is like to be the target of undeserved hatred.” She shrugs. “There are those among you who are not savages, just as there are those among ourselves who are not crazed lunatics.”

Before either of them can get too wrapped up in discussing politics, Eres raises a hand.

“We’re on a bit of a time limit. We’re trying to stop a—crazed man,” and she glances in Serana’s direction, hoping the woman won’t take offense. Serana merely quirks a brow, nonplussed, and Eres continues. “From fulfilling a doomsday prophecy. Something about ending the Tyranny of the Sun, or what have you.”

Mirabelle hums thoughtfully. “I have not heard of this prophecy.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Serana agrees. “It’s contained within this scroll, and two others. We’ve found one of them – but we’re at a loss as to where we might find the other. We thought someone here might have some idea where to find it.”

“Or, if we’re lucky, that it might be here already.”

“I am afraid you are not lucky,” Mirabelle responds. “The College does not house any Elder Scrolls, I fear. However…” She snaps her fingers, and Eres feels a shift in the air around them – the sudden awareness that is no longer unnaturally still. “Take a seat and wait here.”

Mirabelle leaves them to their own for but a brief moment. When she returns, she has a singular book within her hands.

That book, she drops upon the table in front of Eres. Then, primly, she takes her own seat across the table from them, and primly folds her hand in front of her.

Eres eyes the woman suspiciously, but looks down at the book in front of her.

**_Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls_** , the cover reads. **_Septimus Signus_**.

Eres opens the book, and she makes it not a paragraph before finding herself wholly and utterly baffled. She turns one page, and then another, and another – and it is all the same rambling, nonsensical babble. The book is hundreds of pages long, and none of it seems to _mean_ anything. She flips through the entirety of the book, all the way to the end, and finds nothing that makes any sense to her whatsoever.

“What is this?” She tosses the book back to the tabletop, irritated. “This book is completely incomprehensible. It’s written in riddles. Is this some kind of a joke?”

Beside her, Serana’s eyes narrow. Eres hopes she won’t have to keep Serana from making an example of this woman. That wouldn’t bode well for any future visits to the College she may have to make.

Mirabelle merely chuckles.

“I’m afraid this is no joke. The man who wrote that book is— _was_ the leading expert in Elder Scrolls. If there was any man who might have any inkling of the location of the scroll you seek, it would be him. Unfortunately,” she gestures to the book, “his mind is not what it once was. He may still be able to help you – _if_ you can manage to decipher his meaning through his babblings.”

Eres drops her head in her hands, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “There’s _no one_ else?”

“Not one,” Mirabelle confirms. “I’ve no idea what happened to Septimus. He was a brilliant man. A few years ago, however…” she shakes her head, sighing. “Something changed, and it is as though his mind… fractured, somehow. Or perhaps,” she shrugs, “perhaps he has been influenced by something—or someone—else. It would not be the first time a mage has been driven mad by things beyond his understanding.”

“Where can we find him?” Serana asks. When Eres glances at her, she adds, “We don’t really have much else to go on, and you said it yourself – we’re on a time limit. If there’s any chance he might be able to help us find this scroll, we should find him before my father gets the same idea.”

“Last I heard of him, he’d taken to an outpost to the north, among the ice floes,” Mirabelle tells them. “I don’t know exactly where, but, I believe it may be somewhere north of the shipwreck that is encased in ice.”

Serana and Eres exchange glances.

“A shipwreck _encased_ in ice?”

“It seems it ran aground, somehow—or perhaps became trapped in the ice itself when winter came earlier than they expected. I would avoid it if I were you.” Whatever traces of amusement had been in Mirabelle’s voice fade entirely. “There are dark energies surrounding that place, young one. Not even I would explore that wreck alone.”

“We’re not planning on it,” Serana replies easily. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the scroll.”

“No,” Mirabelle leans back in her seat. “But many have been tempted by its call. An easy place to find shelter in such an unforgiving tundra. Perhaps that is its draw. Whatever the case, avoid it if you can. Septimus should be just north of it.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Eres stands, and Serana stands with her. “Thank you. For your help.”

“Of course.” Mirabelle does not stand, but she stares calmly up at the both of them.

Serana turns to lead them out, then pauses. She turns back. “If I might ask, what made you want to help us? Knowing what I am?”

Mirabelle glances at her. “It wasn’t you,” she says simply, and her eyes drift to Eres beside her. “You, however. There is something about you that seems strangely familiar. I feel almost as though we’ve met before.”

Eres frowns. “We haven’t,” she denies. “I’ve never been here before.”

Mirabelle hums. “Perhaps not.” Her smile, despite this, is almost _knowing_ – as though she is aware of something Eres is not. “Someone close to you, then.”

Eres feels Serana looking at her, but she has no idea what the woman might mean. “I doubt my father spent any time here,” she mutters instead, and turns away. “We should get going if we want to make some headway before sunset.”

It is not uncommon to find the remnants of Dwemer civilization poking up through the cracks of the modern landscape of Skyrim. Eres has seen many of them in her travels, and she has seen some in much better shape than the ruins of Alftand, rising up through the ice and snow of the mountains just southwest of Winterhold.

What is uncommon, however, is finding the remains of newly erected buildings laid abandoned nearby. The sight of them does not bode particularly well for them.

“Do you think someone else beat us to it?” Eres asks, peering up through the slits of the unfinished rooftop of one particular building. It seemed as though whoever had built this had only managed to build the frame of the home, and had never quite gotten around to finishing it. By the appearance of the wood, however, Eres wonders how old it could possibly be – it did not appear as weathered as she would expect for a home up in the mountains.

Serana, a bit ahead of her, beckons at her with a hand. “I don’t think they beat us to anything,” she says, as Eres nears.

“Well, shit.” As Eres approaches, she sees with her own eyes what Serana had found, and comes to the same conclusion. Just beneath her feet, buried beneath the snow, is a frozen corpse. Whoever it was seemed to have died in the process of crawling out of the tent that had collapsed on top of them.

“There’s a few of them,” Serana murmurs, gesturing around her. In a small circle, a number of mounds of snow can be seen – some of which are vaguely in the shapes of bodies, some that Eres would bet held bodies beneath them. “Did they just die in their tents like this?”

Eres, frowning, crouches by the first. “Can’t imagine that’s the case.” She lifts the corner of the tent, careful not to touch the corpse’s body – but she can see no sign of injury. “None of them bled, but they still died suddenly.”

“Avalanche?” Serana peers up at the mountains around them. “I feel like this place would be a bit more buried if that was the case.”

Eres stands, shrugging. “You’d think, but maybe they’ve been here a while. It’s possible there was an avalanche, but the extra snowfall just melted. And now they’re out in the open.” Eres remembers the battlefield she’d encountered in the pass between the Rift and Helgen. “Not the first time I’ve seen something like this. But we don’t have time to bury them.”

“I think the snow took care of that for us.”

“ _Serana_ ,” Eres chides. Serana raises her hands defensively and turns away from the scene.

“Let’s get down into these ruins, then.” Serana starts towards the makeshift bridge the former inhabitants of this place had made that, seemingly, led into the interior of Alftand. “My parents always told me to avoid these types of ruins,” Serana sighs, “I think I see why, now.”

“Lucky for you, you can’t freeze to death.”

“True,” Serana admits. “But if _you_ get hypothermia, it’s not like I could warm you up.”

“Fires tend to go a long way.”

“Noted, I’ll just throw a few fireballs your way until you stop shivering.”

“Stop breathing, more like,” Eres grumbles.

“Not breathing isn’t so bad. Stops me from smelling—whatever this is,” Serana waves in front of her into the makeshift cavern, where oil and who knew what else had spilled over the ground and walls that appeared to have been carved out by whoever had been excavating there.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Eres grouses, pulling her scarf over her nose and mouth. It’s not so much the smell of the oil that’s foul—but something beneath it that smells like a mix of sulfur and something rotting and stale.

Serana shrugs, moving ahead of her. Despite knowing the woman doesn’t necessarily need to breathe to survive, it’s still unsettling to see her chest completely still.

“Do you hear that?”

“You mean that clanking sound?” Eres asks, hearing it echo from deeper within the cavern. “Dwarven machinery, I imagine. I’ve been in ruins like these before, some of their machines still run even after—“

“Not that,” Serana cuts in harshly, shushing her with a wave of her hand. “I hear a voice somewhere.”

Eres stops in place, listening. But she can hear nothing beyond the clanks and hisses of pneumatic machines in the distance, drowning out anything else. But Serana’s senses have proven time and again to be stronger than her own. “Can you tell from where?”

Serana’s face contorts into a scowl, her expression tight with frustration. “This damn ice in here just makes everything bounce around—I can’t pinpoint it. We should keep an eye out for survivors.”

“Or scavengers,” Eres points out. She pulls her bow from her shoulders, and threads an arrow between her fingers to draw quickly. She’s been in far too many of these kinds of places to be caught off guard by things lurking in the shadows. “Speaking of, if you know any lightning spells, now would be a good time to use them.”

Serana raises a brow at her. “You know something I don’t?”

“I told you the machines here still run.” Eres keeps her eyes and ears open for anything that might indicate an unwelcome guest—they haven’t quite reached the ruins yet, the stone corridors of dwarven ruins she knows all too well—but she’s been ambushed one too many times by those damn machines to take chances. “They’re covered with solid metal, impossible to pierce through. A mace might work, but a good dose of electricity or fire works pretty well on them.”

“Fire?”

“From a distance,” Eres insists. “They’re filled with oil. If you can hit them just right, they explode.” Serana’s brows rise high on her forehead. “And the little spiders, they send off sparks when they die, so probably best to just keep your distance in general.”

“Just how many times have you found yourself exploring ruins like these?”

Eres shrugs. “A couple of times, for money. Before I was a Vigilant. Always hated these kinds of—“ she halts suddenly, frowning. “There’s someone in there.”

She sees a shadow through a crack in the ice, where she can see a barrel and an impromptu wall made of wood had been put up between the main corridor and whatever was on the other side of the crack.

Serana approaches it, peering in. The muttering Eres had heard grows louder.

“Khajiit’s in there,” Serana whispers, only after she steps back from the opening. “With a body.”

“Dead?”

“Dead or very unconscious,” Serana mutters. “I only hear one heartbeat, but it’s hard to tell in here. That cat seems totally unhinged.”

Eres sighs, already guessing what it could be. “They love their moon sugar—bet you a gold crown he’s high off his ass.”

Serana snorts, rolling her eyes. “Let’s hope he doesn’t decide to jump us.”

“He probably will.” Those types always do.

And he does—when they reach him, he accuses them of coming to steal his skooma and doesn’t wait for them to try to calm him. Knocking him unconscious may have been kinder, but the cat would have died there anyways without their intervention—just much more slowly.

“Murdered his friend for it, too, looks like,” Eres sighs, crouching over the other body laid out on the bedroll. “Killed him in his sleep. Didn’t stand a chance.”

Serana tuts under her breath. “I’ll never understand why you mortals do drugs.”

“Don’t lump me in with them,” Eres scoffs, standing. “I don’t even drink.”

Serana pats her on the shoulder. “Yes, I’m very proud of you.”

Eres rolls her eyes this time, shaking her head. “Let’s just get this over with. We’re getting closer.”

“You think there’s more of them down here?”

Eres shrugs at the question, but before long the carved out ice cavern opens up into the cold stone architecture of the dwarven ruins beneath, and littered all around are the corpses of dismantled machines and even a table with a scattering of notes and ramblings on parchment.

“Well, they were, at least,” Eres picks up one of the papers, skims over it. Someone had been studying the machinations, trying to figure out how they worked. They’d found them to be powered by soul gems, at least, but hell, Eres could have told them that and saved them the trouble. “Dunno how many may have survived down here. If they didn’t bring guards with them I don’t know that they won’t have been killed by the machines.”

“They’re that bad?” Serana asks, then looks around and hums thoughtfully. “There does seem to be a lot of them.”

“Probably more, too, the further we go. Bigger ones, too.” Eres shudders. “Let’s hope we don’t run into one of the big ones.”

“How big are we talking here?”

“Bigger than they have any right to be.” Muttering almost more to herself than Serana, Eres stuffs a few of the research notes into one of her pouches to take with her. She might get some use of them later when she has time to study them properly. Fellburg could use some non-homicidal automatons. A cleaning machine would be a godsend. Though Johanna and Yosef probably wouldn’t be too fond of that idea. They’d gotten used to the other magical workings in the Keep, but they might not take too kindly to dwarven machines wandering around, repurposed or not.

She can worry about that later.

“How far down do you think this—what did he call it again?”

“Tower of something or other.”

“Towers are normally _above_ ground,” Serana gripes, huffing as she waits impatiently for one of the pistons to fire so she can safely walk past it. It does, and she and Eres cross quickly past it before it can shove either of them off the open end of the walkway.

“I’ve stopped trying to understand dwarves.” Eres shrugs, unbothered. She hears a clanking, whirring sound, and sighs heavily. “Here they come.”

She doesn’t bother with her bow at this point—as deep as they are now, they’re unlikely to encounter any more stragglers, not any that haven’t already been dispatched by the city’s mechanized security. Instead, she pulls her Vigilant’s sword—it will be good for partying the drone’s blades if nothing else—and in her offhand she wills her magicka to manifest itself as sparks that curl and twist around her fingers and wrist, hungry to escape her grasp. She can already feel the beginnings of a headache pounding at her temple. She _hates_ battle magic.

Serana beats her to it with a spike of ice nearly as wide as it is long. It smashes dead center into the drone’s barrel shaped chest and slams it against the very wall it had crawled out of.

Eres sends her a look. “Really?”

Serana shrugs, frost magic still misting around her fingertips. “Just testing.”

Belatedly, the mallet of ice she’d thrown at the thing falls, shattering into shards before it even hits the ground. Serana shakes out her hand, tutting under her breath. “Those things are more durable than they look.”

“I told you that already.” Eres lets the spell in her left hand go, and the lance of pain at her temple ebbs ever so slightly. She knows it will return with a vengeance the next time she calls that spell to her hand. “One day maybe you’ll believe me when I tell you things.”

“Oh, I believed you,” Serana says loftily, shrugging, “just wanted to see it for myself. Come on, I hear more of them up ahead.”

Eres groans, but at least this time she can see that Serana has taken her advice and called lightning to her hands rather than her usual frost.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

“You’ve said that already.”

“And I still mean it.”

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Not in the slightest.” Eres pushes open the door regardless. Dwarven cities, in her experience, tend to be rather straightforward – generally, they lead downward. When she steps out to find that the landing ahead of them ends with a sheer drop off the end from a crumpled walkway that had fallen below, she hesitates.

“Bit of a drop.” Serana walks up to the edge as casually as if the drop was merely a few inches rather than several meters. “Might want to watch the landing. I’m not carrying you through this whole place if you break a leg.”

“Ha, ha.” Eres takes several small, unsteady steps forward, and peers over the edge. She knows, logically, that the drop is not a fatal one—hell, if she landed correctly, it probably wouldn’t even hurt too badly. People have certainly survived much worse. That knowledge does nothing to stop her knees from feeling a bit weak.

Serana, damn her, just leaps right off the edge and drops to the ground lightly, not even remotely bothered by its height. When she lands, she looks up at Eres as if she’s surprised to still find her up above rather than with her on the ground.

“Are you coming or not?”

Eres looks away from her, sweeps her gaze across the room. “Just seeing if there’s another way down.”

“What, you afraid?” Eres doesn’t look at her, but she can just imagine the woman putting her hands on her hips, looking up at her all shrewdly like Eres is being ridiculous, that teasing smirk on her face. “It’s not even that high.”

“For you, maybe,” Eres mutters, turning a slow circle. No matter where she looks, she can’t find any other way down. With a sigh, she makes her way back to the ledge. 

Serana, as expected, waits below with her hands braced on her hips, looking up at her expectantly. Serana raises a brow when Eres meets her eyes. “Want me to catch you?”

Eres tries to imagine that—she knows Serana is more than strong enough to do so, being a vampire, but the woman isn’t _that_ much bigger than she is. She can’t picture Serana actually managing to catch her. She’s not even entirely sure if Serana was being serious or only teasing her.

Her indecision must show on her face, because Serana’s expression softens. “I didn’t know you were afraid of heights,” she says softly. “I _can_ catch you, you know. If that would make it easier. You should have told me before I jumped down, I could have just grabbed you on the way.” Serana turns her head, looking around, then back up at the ledge with consideration. “Actually, if you give me a second I might be able to find a way back up.”

Eres shake her head. “Some of us aren’t indestructible,” she says, by way of explanation. Rather than leaping off the edge as Serana had done, Eres instead lowers herself so that she sits on the edge, legs dangling off the side, and then, taking a deep breath, she turns to slowly lower herself further. It’s not the most heroic way of going about it, but hell. She’s mortal, not made of steel.

When she dangles from her hands, the drop seems at least slightly more manageable, with Serana waiting below.

“You sure you don’t want me to catch you?”

Eres doesn’t answer. It’s more difficult than it should be to convince herself to let go of the ledge, even knowing she couldn’t dangle there forever.

The impact of her feet on the ground below sends a shock of pain reverberating from her ankles up through her knees and hips. “Ow.”

Serana comes to her, looking more uncertain than Eres can remember ever seeing her. “You okay? I didn’t hear anything break, but—”

“Fine,” Eres rolls each ankle, wincing. They weren’t broken or sprained, but they certainly weren’t happy with that kind of drop. “Remind me to look up a featherfall spell next time we’re in a city.”

Eres decidedly ignores the concerned look Serana sends her, and instead picks her way through the rubble to get to ground that’s blissfully flat and stable.

“I’m not indestructible, for the record.” The tone of her voice is carefully light, like she means to break through the awkwardness with a bit of forced humor. “Just mostly indestructible.” Serana flashes her a smile.

Good-naturedly, Eres rolls her eyes at that, unable to hold back a wry smile of her own.

“And so humble, too,” she adds, and Serana’s smile widens into a smug grin. Eres shakes her head at her, moving to the edge of the platform where she sees another ramp heading downward. “This way.”

“You sure?”

“Am I ever sure about anything?”

A pause. “No, not really.”

“And yet you keep asking,” Eres starts walking all the same.

“Silly me—wait,” Eres stops. She’s about to ask why, but then she hears it too. “Gods, they _stink_ ,” Serana’s hand flies up to cover her nose, and again Eres sees her chest still. “ _Falmer_ ,” Serana mutters, her voice muffled through her hand.

Eres should have expected that. She grabs her bow, pressing a finger to her lips. “We should be able to get the drop on them.”

With the two of them being as quiet as possible, and the addition of her own elven sight and Serana’s vampiric senses, they manage to pick their way down while dropping most of the wandering Falmer before they’re even aware they have company.

The sharp angles and unwieldy stones of the dwarven cities give way instead to Falmer construction, woven fences and all manner of chaurus carapace-made things like tables and tents and even the occasional all-too-obvious trap. As vicious as the Falmer can be, they’re thankfully not known for being especially intelligent.

Dispatching them, despite being more numerous, is far easier than any of the dwarven mechanisms they’d run into, made even easier by the fact that the Falmer had made their homes in the crumbling ruins of a people who used oil for damn near _everything_. More than once Eres had found creative uses for the spilled oil that covered the floors in some rooms, all too happy to set them aflame and take them all out in one effortless stroke.

They continue ever downward, picking their way through the small Falmer camps and the occasional drone awakened by their presence, and at long last they open yet another set of doors to find themselves in what appears to be some kind of courtyard. Climbing up the stairs to the next landing, Eres sees a wide, barred gate just beyond them, with stairs leading further upward.

“Bet you a gold crown that’s the tower,” Serana says.

“I get the feeling I’d lose that bet.” Eres walks right up to the bars, grabbing at one with one hand and giving it a good shake—as expected, it is as sturdy as can be. She turns, looking for whatever mechanism might control it.

“Good Gods,” Serana breathes, “what the _hell_ is that thing?”

Eres turns to look, and whistles low when she sees it. She’s not quite sure how she hadn’t heard the thing stomping around until now, but the Falmer fighting it _were_ quite loud. “Automaton. Told you they were big.”

“And I thought Mother’s gargoyles were ridiculous,” Serana mutters. “You have any idea how to kill those things?”

“Sure,” Eres crosses her arms, looking beyond the gate at the automaton and the Falmer surrounding it. “We wait and see who wins, and then finish the job.”

Serana snorts at that. “We might as well look for a way to open the damn gate while we’re at it.”

“Can’t you just pry the bars open?”

Serana scoffs. “And ruin my manicure?” Eres chuckles, and Serana points off to a corner of the courtyard on the opposite side, closer to where they’d entered. “Looks like there’s two of them. I’ll get the other one, you get that one.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eres salutes. Serana flips her off.

As it turns out, the Falmer lose—badly. Once the group of them are dead, the Automaton hisses and groans as it stomps back into its resting place and goes still. Sharing a look across the courtyard, Eres and Serana pull the levers to open the gates, then meet back just past the bars.

“Honestly I expected it to attack us right away.”

“These things usually have some kind of detectable range, I think,” Eres takes a step to the left, then two steps to the right. The Automaton remains deathly still. “But that platform’s small enough that it’ll wake up once we go up there.”

“Don’t think even I could come up with a spike big enough to kill that thing.”

“Hmm.” Eres considers the merits of using lightning on it—she’s had some success with it in the past, the last and _only_ time she’d ever found herself facing down an Automaton, but in that case she’d only managed to damage it and had just darted off to the next area where it was too big to follow her. As far as she could see, she only saw wide open space, the walkways wide and the ceiling impossibly high. Even if they ran past it, the damn thing would just chase them, and if giants were any indication, it’d be able to catch up to them all too easily.

Well, maybe not Serana, but definitely Eres.

“I have an idea.”

“Oh, what an occasion.”

“Shut up—do you have any skill with enchanting?”

“I know a bit,” Serana admits, brow furrowing. “I don’t see what that has to do with this, though.”

“If you’d let me finish,” Eres drops to one knee, roots through her pack until she finds her tent stakes, and a long, winding length of strong rope. “We can bait it. We stretch this across the gate, enchant it with the strongest lightning magic we can manage, and hopefully when it chases us down, it trips the trap and blows itself up.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Then at least we damaged it,” Eres shrugs. She tosses Serana a stake without waiting for an answer. “Just put that in the ground next to the other side of the gate.” She moves to do the same on the opposite side, winding the rope tightly around it.

Once it’s secure, she takes the other end of the rope and does the same with Serana’s stake—and still has several meters of rope left over.

“We can stretch it across the gate up top,” Serana suggests. She takes the end from Eres’ hands, climbs easily up to the top of the gate and loops it around the spike on Eres’ side, returns to her own and loops it again there, jumps down, and finishes with tying the other end back to the stake it started from.

When she’s done, the rope forms a giant ‘X’ across the gate’s opening, with the tripwire just a foot off the ground.

Eres looks at the way Serana had looped the rope around the gate itself and frowns. “Now I’m wondering why we bothered with the stakes.”

“Because you’re an idiot.” Serana shrugs. “Go do your thing on your side, I’ll start from here.”

It takes longer than Eres wants to admit for her to focus enough to imbue the rope with enough lightning that she feels it might function as an acceptable trap for something so big, but even performing magic well within her comfort zone is more difficult when it feels like someone’s driving an icepick through her skull.

“Ready?” Serana steps over the rope to the other side, further from the Automaton. Eres stands, and her vision darkens dangerously for a moment.

She sways, nearly stumbling right into the very trap she’d just set. Righting herself, she manages to step over it without triggering it herself, and waves off the worried look Serana shoots her. From her back, she pulls her bow, and nocks a single arrow.

“As soon as I shoot this thing it’s gonna come charging at us.”

“Maybe we should be upstairs,” Serana suggests.

Eres releases her draw, gaping at her. “Serana, you’re a _genius_.”

Serana blinks. “Not that I’m arguing that, but why?”

“Plan B—you’re fast, you wait up top by one of the levers. If this trap doesn’t kill it, I’ll run past the gate and you can drop the lever and meet me on the other side—”

“And the automaton will be trapped over here,” Serana finishes, smiling. “I _am_ a genius.” She disappears in a flash, and when Eres glances over her shoulder, she sees the woman standing at the ready by one of the levers at the top of the stairs, one hand already curled around its handle. “Ready when you are!” She shouts.

Eres draws her bow once more. “Here goes nothing.”

On a sudden consideration, Eres takes several long steps back from the gate and the trap, and then fires.

The sound of the tip of her arrow hitting the Automaton’s near-impenetrable armor with a hollow _tink_ and then clattering harmlessly to the floor in the silence of the underground courtyard was so strangely melodramatic that Eres found herself laughing outright—

Only then the Automaton shudders, clanks riotously, pistons firing so hotly it sounds almost _furious_ , if machines could be such a thing, and with a loud, whirring roar, the damn thing practically leaps from its platform and barrels down toward her at full speed.

“Oh, fuck—” Eres nearly drops her bow—and then does exactly that when the Automaton slams into the rope and then _through it,_ sparks flying and a loud, calamitous clap like the sound of lightning striking right next to you—or what Eres would imagine it would be like, having been fortunate enough to _not_ have been struck by lightning before, at least, but the sound pierces her ears so violently that everything after it sounds weirdly muffled and distant.

The automaton barrels right through the explosion of lightning all the same, though its movements turn jerky and stuttering, not as smooth as they had been before, and Eres manages to dart past it through the gate before it recovers from the trap’s stun.

The bars slam upward as Serana throws the lever, and the woman is already next to Eres on the other side of the gate before the automaton even realizes it’s lost its target. The gate does little to deter it—the damn thing merely throws itself against the bars, over and over, the sound of it ringing in Eres’ ears.

Serana grabs her hand and tugs. Eres hears something, distantly, something that sounds very much like Serana’s voice but indiscernible, as though speaking from an incredible distance or through several dozen pillows. It feels like her ears have been stuffed with cotton, and that damnable high-pitched ringing hasn’t stopped.

Eres allows Serana to tug her up the stairs all the same, the clanging of the automaton slamming against the gate bars fading into the distance and then, to nothing at all.

She doesn’t know where the two people came from they ran into at the top of the stairs, can’t hear them shout at each other over the ringing in her ears, but she does see them both turn on them, raising their weapons, and as one she and Serana dispatch them easily.

Serana crouches over one, pulls out a key from one of his pockets, then points at the dias in the center of the room. Her lips move, but again, her voice sounds distant and muffled.

Eres, scowling, reaches to rub at her ears and nearly yelps at the sharp, piercing pain that slices through her as soon as her finger even brushes against the part of her ear where it connects just above her jaw, right above the eardrum. She holds up a hand to either ear and snaps her fingers—she can only barely hear the sound of it, dull and understated as though she heard it from several feet away rather than inches.

Serana first inserts the key to the dais, unlocking the gate ahead of them—Eres sees what looks like another lever, and recognizes it to be one of the dwarven lifts she’s seen in the past. Then the woman grabs Eres by the elbow and tugs her along, shaking her head when Eres says—or _thinks_ she says that she’s lost her hearing.

_“It’s temporary,”_ Serana mouths—or says, possibly, but Eres has to read her lips to understand her regardless, and it’s far more distracting than it should be to watch her lips move as she talks. _“Can’t you heal yourself?”_

Eres follows Serana into the lift, allows Serana to pull the lever for her. She shakes her head. An internal injury—whether it be to the ears or any other part of the body—is a lot different than being able to heal something you can see and visualize. Eres can heal cuts and basic wounds, she doesn’t know nearly enough about the finer details of anatomy to even risk trying to heal something as sensitive as her hearing. She could always go to a healer in the city once they’re out of here, if it doesn’t come back on its own.

She’s fairly certain it will—she hopes, anyways. The ringing isn’t quite as high pitched anymore, though everything is still muffled as all hell. Still, it’s promising enough.

The lift, as all dwarven lifts tend to be, is impressively smooth as it lurches into action. The floor doesn’t even so much as tremble aside from the initial acceleration.

“I hope there’s not any more machines,” Eres says, and hopes she’s not shouting it. From the quirked brow Serana sends her, she’s not entirely sure she’s successful.

Serana still hasn’t released her arm, even when the lift stops and the lift-cage slides open again. Had it been anyone else, Eres might have complained, told them she’s not an invalid—and besides, what makes you think she can’t walk just because she can’t hear well? It’s not like she’s _blind_.

But it’s Serana, not anyone else, and Eres finds she doesn’t mind all that much. Even through her robes, she can feel the coolness of Serana’s skin—or perhaps, more accurately, she can feel the lack of warmth where Serana holds her, the warmth one might expect when someone else is touching you, but is oddly absent when that someone is a vampire.

Vampires aren’t _cold_ , not really, unless the environment itself is cold, but Alftand had been surprisingly warm, given all the machinery and oil-burning and whatever else that had warmed the cold air around them. Even so, Serana’s body did not produce heat like a mortal’s did, and so her touch was just…noticeably less warm than anyone else’s might have been.

Perhaps Eres should have been uncomfortable with that fact, made uneasy by the reminder that Serana wasn’t truly _alive_ in the usual sense of the word, but it was strange—Eres typically ran hot, always had, and beyond the typical discomfort of being touched in general, she hated just how _hot_ being close to someone else always made her.

With Serana, that feeling was just—not there. Serana was pleasantly cool. Eres remembers little Neil, back in Fellburg, how he’d hovered and had always taken every opportunity to cuddle with her, and how uncomfortable she’d always become after mere minutes, when their combined body heat made her too hot, made her irritable. She’d never told Neil that, of course, he was far too young to understand such a thing, but still.

Was it strange that she found Serana’s touch more welcome than that of her own family’s?

Eres flinches suddenly, cursing as fingers pinch at the sensitive skin behind her arm, and when she snaps her head to glare at Serana, the woman is looking at her expectantly, then tugs pointedly at her arm with one hand, using the other to point beyond them—past the lift opening and the short hallway it leads to, and into the room beyond it.

Eres can just see the glow of—she’s not even sure _what_ is on the other side of the lift anymore. But whatever it is, it’s _glowing_.

Serana tugs her along, then, now that she has Eres’ attention, and as soon as they’re out of the hallway, Eres cranes her neck back to look up and around them, and she has to tilt her head back as far as it can go before she can even so much as glimpse the ceiling of the cavern above them, what feels like miles overhead.

To every side of her, all around them, the underground city spills out into a cavern that looks so wide and tall it could have easily fit the whole of Fellburg inside it and still have room for more.

_“Blackreach,”_ Serana says to her. Her voice is still muffled, but at least Eres can sort of hear syllables now. _“Watch out for Falmer.”_

Eres nods. Serana releases her arm, and Eres reaches for her bow yet again. Hearing or no, she can still fire an arrow.

It feels strange to follow behind Serana instead of the other way around, though Eres understands that it’s safer this way. Serana glances behind her every few seconds as if she fears Eres might have wandered away when she wasn’t looking.

If Serana uses a bit more of her magic than necessary to make sure they get through the underground cavern as quickly as possible, given Eres’ current limitations, neither of them see fit to mention it.

Had Eres not blew out her own eardrums—and were they not on a strict deadline, perhaps—she might have wanted to explore. Even in the few dwarven ruins she’d been in, she’d never gone deeper inside than absolutely necessary. Did all of them connect to places like this, and she’d just never gone far enough inside to find it? Or was it just Alftand? Just how big of a civilization had the dwarves been before they went extinct?

And how _did_ they go extinct, anyways, as advanced as they were? They had an artificial _sun_ down here, for gods’ sake.

Thankfully, Serana’s instincts seem to be well in working order—she follows the path right as they come out of the lift and decides to remain on the path that appears almost paved rather than testing it with wandering off on smaller paths, and they soon find themselves at yet another lift—one that Eres hopes will lead them _out_. And above ground. With the real sun.

Or, well—the tower first. Then outside and sun after. That would be nice.

Serana tugs her into the lift as she had before with the other one, and throws the lever. It rises upward as smoothly as the last one, and when the lift cage opens again, Eres feels as though they’re several floors—would they be considered _floors_ , really, if it wasn’t truly just one building?—above from where they’d come from.

Ahead of them, at the end of the short hallway leading out from the lift, Eres can see something huge, something spherical—something that looked very dwarven and very much mechanical. She hopes this is what they’re looking for.

Serana leads her out, out into the hallway and then up the ramp that curls around the side of this giant spherical thing, and Eres again cranes her neck back to look up at the mechanism spanning the entire room above them—it’s some kind of contraption she’s never seen before in her life, but yet looks strangely familiar, like—like a stylized astrolabe that’s not quite assembled properly, except the “arms” are like giant magnifying glasses above their heads.

Serana deposits her next to one of the pedestals as they reach the top of the landing on the ramp, atop of which there are four such pedestals as well as another that looks as though it would fit the lexicon perfectly.

Serana, wordlessly, ruffles through Eres’ bag while it’s still on her back until she finds it, then places it on the appropriate pedestal and starts messing with the dials on the other ones.

Eres squints over her shoulder, but she can’t tell what any of the damn runes mean.

Whatever Serana’s doing, it’s working. She sees the center of one of the pedestals open, displaying a bright blue gem that appears lit from within—or perhaps it’s simply a light? She’s never understood much about dwarven mechanisms, as interesting as she finds them to be. As Serana shifts to the next pedestal and starts fiddling with it, Eres sees the shadows of the astrolabe-like arms shifting positions above them.

Once, twice, three times they shift until they settle again, now with not one but two of the glass bulbs at the end illuminated by the light from above them.

_Ah_ , Eres thinks, with sudden understanding. Serana has to arrange them so that the light filters through the glass—only once they’re all in place will the inscription work, she imagines.

The arms start to switch positions again. Serana moves quicker, now, and within a few quick seconds, the light on the third pedestal turns blue.

The arms move sluggishly above them, lagging behind Serana’s too-quick movements. The arms go through two more shifts before they lock in place, light filtering through each of them, and the fourth pedestal lights up belatedly.

From the ceiling, an almost bulbous contraption descends as the arms move seemingly randomly above them, light filtering in from different angles, then coming apart again only to come together in a different way in the same manner. On the fifth pedestal, the lexicon glows, infused with energy, runes emblazoned across its dark surface.

The contraption that had dropped down from the ceiling opens, and an arm unfurls from within—an arm that carries a very familiar looking object. The light from above streams down, centered upon the thing as if anointing it with light from the heavens themselves.

The Elder Scroll.

“That crazy old man was right,” Eres breathes, genuinely stunned. “I take back what I said about him.”

Serana grabs the lexicon, shoving it so hard into Eres’ pack that she nearly tilts back into her. “I don’t,” Serana says—her breath puffs against Eres’ ear, her voice clearer than it’s been for hours, and Eres steels herself, her muscles going tight with sudden, unexpected tension at her proximity.

Serana pulls away almost as quickly, and jogs down the ramp to grab the scroll. Eres watches her lift it from the mechanism and turn back to make her way back up the ramp, scroll held aloft in her arms and a wide, relieved smile on her lips. Eres makes her way down the ramp, and when she reaches Serana, the woman hands Eres the scroll and spins around without saying a word.

She doesn’t need to. Eres, understanding her intention, makes quick work of strapping the second scroll next to the first upon Serana’s back. She’s the best person to carry it, as heavy as they are, and Eres already has her pack, besides.

She taps Serana’s shoulder when she’s done, and when Serana spins around again with that almost giddy grin on her face, Eres almost expects the woman to hug her from pure excitement.

Serana doesn’t, though, just hurriedly tugs her along, towards the set of doors located beneath the ramps just in front of the strange mechanism.

Feeling a bit paranoid, Eres checks her bag for the inscribed lexicon one last time before she lets Serana throw the lever for the lift—it’s there, safe and sound next to her bedroll, glowing softly in the dark depths of her bag. And the scroll—both scrolls—are safe and sound on Serana’s back.

They have everything they need, now. All they have to do is go back to the fort, get Dexion to read the last scroll, and they’ll finally know how to put an end to this stupid prophecy and stop Serana’s father from whatever hell he’s planning to unleash upon the world. They’re _almost there_. Eres can practically see the finish line already.

Serana throws the lever, the lift rises, and together they blink into the bright light of the midday sun reflecting off freshly fallen snow. Eres’ breath fogs in the air in front of her. Serana’s does not.

Eres shivers. After spending so long in the heated air of Alftand, the biting air of the mountains has never felt colder.

“Let’s get going before I freeze to death.”

“I still have fireballs on offer, don’t worry.”

“I heard that,” Eres narrows her eyes at her. “My hearing is coming back now.” She frowns thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s the cold air?”

“Good,” Serana says simply, smiling innocently back at her. “You were meant to hear it, by the way. I’ve got nothing to hide.” She spins on her heel then, taking off at a brisk march across the snowy tundra.

Eres sighs at her back. She’ll let Serana lead—for now. She deserves to have a good mood now and then.

Eres thinks of when they’d first met, the uncertainty and wariness that Serana had treated her with, the purposeful distance they’d both kept, and it was almost hard to believe it was the same woman.

Despite the bone-chilling air and the fact that Serana’s seemingly forgotten she can’t walk nearly as fast as her, Eres finds herself smiling all the same.

Here she is, Keeper of the Vigil, and the person she could probably call her best friend is a vampire. What were the odds.


	11. Seeking Disclosure: II

ACT III  
CHAPTER XI  
SEEKING DISCLOSURE

“We should really think about investing in a couple of horses.”

Eres favors Serana with the driest look she can muster. “As often as your father sends his minions out to ambush us? If we had horses they’d be dead by the end of the day. Or missing—they’re not too fond of vampires.”

Serana sighs. “I’m starting to think this whole being a vampire business isn’t all it’s chalked up to be.”

Eres catches the flash of a wry grin Serana sends her and rolls her eyes, shaking her head. If nothing else, the long journey had done nothing to dull her sense of humor.

“Really, though, there has to be a better way than running halfway across Skyrim on foot. Have you ever looked into teleportation?”

“That’s a bit beyond my pay grade, I’m afraid.” Eres leans over, pulls aside the flap of the tarp covering their carriage, and peers outside. It’s still dark, but the sky has begun to lighten just near the horizon, just enough that the landscape around them has begun to take on the softest of pre-dawn light. “We’re not far from Riverwood, I think.”

“You can tell that just by looking at the road?”

Eres leans back in her seat, letting the tarp close around them. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness within, even darker than that outside. In the few moments she’s near-blind, she can only see the dark silhouette of Serana on the opposite side—and two piercing, glowing red eyes.

At one point, she might have found the sight unsettling. Though it still startles her at times when she’s not expecting it, Serana’s eyes have become a sort of strange comfort—she can always find her, even when the woman is bathed in darkness.

“I’ve spent a lot of time travelling Skyrim. I’m pretty familiar with the main roads.”

Serana sighs. “This would be so much faster if we could teleport.”

“Be my guest.” Eres waves her on, not entirely joking. “You’ve made a portal to the Soul Cairn. Teleportation can’t be that much more difficult.”

Serana grins, fangs flashing menacingly white against the darkness surrounding her. “Volunteering to be my test subject, then?”

“After the Soul Cairn nearly chewed me up and spit me out?” Eres scoffs. “I think I’ve had enough of being your test subject, thank you. Find some other poor mortal to play with.”

“I did say I was sorry. It slipped my mind.”

Eres tuts at her, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “Does my mortal soul mean so little to you?”

“Given that your mortal soul is the reason you’re so damn fragile—yes, it does mean that little to me.”

Eres palms the wood flatbed of the cart for something to throw at her and comes up empty. “You’re lucky I don’t have anything to throw at you.”

Serana scoffs. “As if I couldn’t dodge it.”

Eres hears several loud, purposeful thunks against the wood cart, and the driver’s voice comes to her ears not a moment later.

“’Fraid we have to take the long way ‘round Helgen—bandits holed up in the old fort up there since the attack.”

Eres’ brow furrows. The long way would be wrapping around the entire mountain range, easily adding half a day or more to their travel time. And then there’s the matters of that old, dilapidated keep on the bend leading east from Whiterun. Either way, they’re like to run into bandits.

“Can you drop us off up near Helgen?” Eres asks, tapping on the wood herself to get his attention. With the tarp pulled over the back of the carriage, she’s unable to see him from inside it. “We’re on a bit of a deadline.”

For a long moment, she’s met with silence.

Then, hesitantly, the driver says, “I don’t know about that’un…”

Eres catches Serana’s gaze and rolls her eyes pointedly. “Would an extra gold crown persuade you?”

A pause. “Make it two,” says the driver.

“Asshole,” Serana whispers, just loud enough that Eres can hear her, but the driver likely wouldn’t.

“Two, then,” Eres agrees. “You can stop once we can see the gate. Don’t want to draw their attention.”

“It’ll be another few hours, then,” the driver agrees, and whips the reigns. Eres feels the cart pull to the left, turning slowly to the new direction.

“Would wrapping around have cost us that much time? We’ve done it before.”

“Maybe by yourself, you have,” Eres reminds her. “You and I haven’t come this way together before. The last time you came to the fort from the west, it was alone—looking for me, remember?”

Serana nods. “I’d forgotten. The trip isn’t that long for a vampire.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you.”

“I did offer to carry you.”

Eres makes a face at that, almost wishing that Serana wouldn’t be able to see it. Unfortunately, Serana’s dark vision is easily twice as good as her own, and she hears the woman laugh at her. “I’m not an invalid,” Eres argues. “I don’t need to be carried.”

“Maybe not need, but it would have been faster. We could have been back at the fort by now.”

“Tell you what—we ever get that desperate for time, I’ll let you carry me wherever you want.”

“Oh, sure, act like you’re the one doing me a favor.”

The silence that settles between them is easy and comfortable, the kind of silence wherein neither of them feel pressured to say anything at all. Strangely, Eres can’t remember a time that it has ever been especially awkward between the two of them. Even just after meeting, they’d gotten along as well as though they had known each other for years, slipping into the same casual banter then as they often did now. Eres could not remember another person she’d connected with so quickly, so effortlessly, and certainly not someone with whom she should have logically been an enemy of.

It’s some time before either of them speaks again, long enough that when Serana does speak, Eres is started out of a half-doze without realizing she had even fallen asleep to begin with.

“He said there was an attack on Helgen.” Serana’s eyes catch hers in the darkness, both curious and solemn. “What happened?”

“Dragon.” Serana stares at her. “No, really—that’s what everyone says it was.”

“There aren’t any dragons in Skyrim—in the world, even. They all died out ages ago.”

Eres shrugs helplessly. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. I’ve seen Helgen myself—it was a long time ago, now, but it wasn’t so long after the attack must have happened. It was still burning, and it’d been weeks since it was reported. I can’t imagine anything else but a dragon could have left behind that much destruction.”

“Were there any survivors?”

Eres shakes her head. “Not that I know of. It was the people of Riverwood who ran to the Jarl with reports of seeing a dragon flying overhead. And I’ve heard they’ve been sighted elsewhere, too.”

“That’s insane—where could a dragon have been hiding all this time? Is it still around?”

Eres shrugs again. “No idea. I’ve never seen it myself. But I’ve heard people talking about it all over—here, up near Solitude, even as far as Riften. Don’t think it’s attacked since Helgen, though. Or if it has, no one’s lived to tell the story.”

“Maybe it’s just rumors from the first sighting. People wanting attention.”

“Maybe,” Eres says, but she finds herself frowning all the same. Something tells her it isn’t just an old wives’ tale. “I’ve seen stranger things, so I guess dragons just don’t strike me as that odd anymore. And—” she cuts herself off before she can say it, before she can bring up his name in her presence.

Molag Bal. When he’d been summoned by Altano at Stendarr’s Beacon, he’d taken the form of a dragon with a pincered head. She’d almost said, I’ve seen a dragon before—but then she would have had to explain where, and how, and why, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. Serana trusted her—Eres knew Serana would believe her. That wasn’t the issue. It was that Eres knew that he was a sore subject for her. There was no use reminding her of him if it wasn’t necessary.

“And what?”

“I don’t know,” Eres lies. “Vampires trying to put out the sun—Durnehviir in the Soul Cairn… It just seems like dragons flying around again might as well be happening, too.”

“Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” Serana muses. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at things.”

“It’s always best to plan for the unexpected.”

“If you’re planning for it, it’s hardly unexpected anymore, now is it?” Eres frowns at her. “Checkmate.”

“I think this cart is driving you mad.”

At that, Serana lets out a long suffering sigh, throwing her head back against the stretched-taut tarp behind her. “It really is. Turns out, when you spend a few millennia locked up in a coffin, you end up not being so fond of confined spaces.”

Eres’ stomach sinks. She hadn’t even thought of that before.

“I never asked,” she says slowly, uncertain if Serana will even want to answer her. “What was it like when you were locked away? Were you—aware? The whole time?”

Thousands of years, just…waiting. Cramped up in that tiny coffin, just waiting for time to pass. Eres tries to think of spending even a single day like that and can’t imagine it. Spending millennia that way sounds like a fate worse than death.

“Not the whole time, no,” Serana’s smile, though meant to reassure her, is wan, thin around the edges. Eres hates to see her look so—so much like she’s hiding her pain, like she’s trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. Eres wants to tell her she doesn’t have to hide it—not with her.

“Pure vampires—like me, and my family, we’re a bit different from the regular ones. I’m sure you’ve noticed there’s a few obvious differences, like us not being as affected by the sun and all,” Eres nods, prompting her to continue. “But that’s not the only difference. We don’t have to feed as often. It’s not pleasant to go without blood for very long, but it won’t kill us like it will the weaker ones. We just sort of—shut down, I guess. We go to sleep. Like a sort of hibernation, in a way, I suppose.”

“So you were asleep that entire time?”

“Most of it,” Serana shrugs. “I remember—I remember being awake for some of it, at the beginning. I don’t know how long. It was impossible to tell time in there. Maybe it was hours, or days—it could have been weeks or even months but, it’s not like I could’ve told the difference. After that…” Her brow furrows, eyes turning distant. “I don’t remember much after that. I think I might have woke up a couple of times here or there, just for a couple of minutes.”

Serana leans back against the wall of the carriage, looking up at the ceiling of the covered cart, her eyes tracing the seams of the hides that had been sewn together to form it.

“I distinctly remember waking up once or twice and thinking, ‘Oh—I’m still in here.’ But that’s—that’s all I remember, until you woke me up.”

“With the ritual,” Eres remembers. “The pedestals all around that tomb.”

“The ritual was just to unseal me,” Serana tells her, shaking her head. “It was your blood that woke me. Don’t you remember?”

Eres remembers then, all at once, with a phantom twinge at the center of her right hand. She grimaces. “I’d managed to forget that part of it.”

“I imagine it wasn’t too pleasant for you, no,” Serana says, a wry smile gracing her lips. Despite that it’s sort of at Eres’ expense, she’s glad to see her humor again, her real humor, and not the forced façade she’d put on earlier. “For me, on the other hand,” that smile curls into a devilish smirk. “You tasted quite pleasant, actually.”

Eres feels heat flare across her cheeks. “Do you have to say it that way?”

“If it bothers you? Absolutely.”

It’s another hour before the carriage pulls to a slow stop, the driver thumping pointedly on the wood dividing the carriage’s bed from the driver’s bench. As one, Eres and Serana make their way out from the back of the cart.

Eres stumbles when she lands, temporarily blinded by the reflection of the morning sun against too-white snow. Serana reaches a hand out to steady her almost absently, even as she stretches out her legs.

The driver doesn’t come down from his perch, only waits impatiently for Eres to approach him with her coinpurse out. He thrusts his hand out at her, beckoning with his fingers, his eyes flicking nervously from her to the gates of Helgen looming a half-mile away from where he’d stopped.

Wordlessly, she digs into her purse for the few gold she’d promised him. He frowns at her when she presses the pieces into his hands, glancing back at the gates of Helgen, then to her again. He opens his mouth like he means to push for more, but then he freezes, stutters, and very quickly pockets the coin with a muttered thanks.

Eres raises a brow, turning to look at Serana. Hood pulled up over her head, Serana meets her gaze with an all-too-innocent smile. Which, in terms of Serana, meant that she was anything but.

The driver hurriedly whips the reigns, and the cart begins its slow turn to descend back down the mountain path.

Eres keeps her eyes on Serana, and pointedly raises a brow. 

“What?” Serana somehow manages to look almost affronted by her scrutiny. “I didn’t threaten him.”

“Openly.”

“Openly,” Serana agrees. Her smile widens, eyes glinting with mischief. “I just don’t think he knew he was carting around a vampire, is all. Hardly my fault.”

“Hardly,” Eres drawls, as dry as sandpaper. “At least you didn’t try to eat him, I suppose.”

“I have my standards.” Serana sniffs, turning on her heel to march up the incline toward Helgen.

“You don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Then maybe you should hurry up.” Serana calls back, spinning to walk backwards as she says it. The sight of her—all dark clothes and pale skin and red eyes, contrasted against the snowy white of the wintry landscape, with that teasing smile upon her lips—makes Eres pause.

Just for a moment. Just long enough to appreciate it. There’s a certain beauty about Serana—of course she’s beautiful, in the typical way, that’s not a question—but there’s a certain kind of beauty in her when she’s like this that makes it hard to think of her as undead.

It’s hard to think of Serana as anything but full of life, full of both the physical sort of beauty and the beauty deep down, the kind that can’t really be put into words but can render a person speechless all the same. The kind that makes you look at someone and think, How are you real? How can you exist?

The kind that makes the sight of her against the backdrop of Skyrim’s cold beauty seem like a dream, like some kind of hallucination that’s just a tad too perfect to be believable.

“Eres?”

Eres blinks, shakes her head. “Sorry, got lost in thought. Coming.”

“I suppose it’s easy to get lost in something you’re not familiar with.”

Eres catches up with her just quickly enough to shove her. Serana stumbles, nearly tripping over herself in the ankle-deep snow, and Eres laughs.

“Hungry?” Eres asks, when Serana’s gaze lingers on Helgen as they creep past it, hidden by its high walls.

“For them? No. Just wondering what it must look like in there. I can still smell something burning.”

“Bonfires, maybe.”

Serana hums, but she doesn’t look convinced. Even stranger, she keeps sending Eres odd, measuring looks, like she’s trying to piece a puzzle together in her head.

“What? You remembered my blood and now you don’t want anyone else’s?” Serana makes a show of considering it, eyeing her up and down.

“Maybe,” she says, her tone light, joking, but the look she gives her doesn’t quite match—she looks at Eres like she’s actually thinking about it, like she would do it if she could. But there’s something else there beneath the surface, something Eres can’t name, something that makes her hesitant. “Are you offering?”

“…No.” Eres can’t lie—she’s thought about it before, all those times when Serana’s disappeared while they traveled to go hunting, wondering if it just might be easier for Serana to feed from her instead.

And maybe there’s a part of her that’s almost morbidly curious. What would it feel like? Did it hurt? Would she be enthralled, if she did it? What exactly happened to a person if they were fed on and lived through it?

But then she remembers his promise, and she knows even if she is curious, it’s a risk she can’t take. If allowing a vampire to feed from her would corrupt her—even one that Meridia has made an exception for—that’s a risk she can’t afford. She’ll steer well clear of that, thanks. She’s not in any rush to meet him again any time soon, if ever.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Serana turns away from her then, that strange look on her face fading away to her usual countenance, and Eres pushes it all to the back of her mind.

It was probably nothing.

Even if it _were_ something, well—she trusts Serana. Serana would never hurt her, not intentionally. No matter how hungry she was. Eres believes that, knows it to be the truth as well as she knows that the sky is blue and grass is green. It’s as fundamental a truth about Serana’s character as it the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

“Gods,” Serana breathes, stepping gingerly over a frozen corpse, “what happened here?”

“Rebel ambush.” Eres carefully avoids stepping anywhere that looks even remotely suspect, just as she avoids looking at the half-frozen faces if she can help it.

“Rebel?”

“Remember how I said there’s a war of succession? The rebels are the Stormcloaks—Nords, mostly,” almost entirely, really, she’d be surprised if there were anything but Nords in their ranks, given their whole mindset. “The Thalmor cracked down on Talos worship in Skyrim; the Nords haven’t taken it well.”

“So they staged a war over—what, the fact that Talos isn’t an official deity anymore?”

“Not quite that simple.” Eres eyes the next stretch of the pass, and wisely decides to climb a bit higher towards the mountain face instead of picking her way through the densest littering of the months-old frozen corpses piled in the center of the pass.

“The Thalmor have been arresting people caught worshipping Talos. Or so they say,” she shrugs. “The Thalmor deny it, of course, but everyone knows it. Open worshippers just randomly disappearing, and the Imperials claim not to know anything about it, that kind of thing.”

“ _Mortals_ ,” Serana mutters, not with a small amount of disgust. “That’s such a stupid thing to care about. Who gives a shit what someone else believes in?”

Eres eyes her, wondering whether to say what she was thinking, but Serana catches her gaze and frowns.

“Within reason,” Serana adds. “As far as I’m aware, Talos isn’t—well, _bad_. Not like—my family, or anything.”

“Right,” Eres turns forward again, deciding not to comment on that one. “Well, I don’t know the exact reasons why. Probably some age-old grudge of something or other. Altmer just hate Talos for some reason, and being they’ve allied with the Empire, well,” she shrugs. “The Empire just lets them do it, so the Rebels pushed back against it—they want Skyrim to be independent, have their religious freedom or… whatever.”

She’s not even sure what else the Stormcloaks want. Ulfric on the throne, surely. Freedom to worship Talos. But anything besides that? She has no idea. Probably to throw everyone who’s not a Nord out of Skyrim, knowing them.

“How long has this war been going on? How long have these people been here? You didn’t seem surprised to see them.”

“They were here last time I came this way. A couple of months ago, maybe? Not sure.” Serana frowns, brows pulling together. “I imagine they didn’t feel it was worth it to come back to bury them. Maybe they thought they’d just walk into another ambush.”

“These poor people…”

For a moment, Eres wonders if she’s being sarcastic, but when she looks at Serana, the woman looks genuinely pitying. She can relate—it _was_ a shame that these people would not find rest, at least not until the war was over.

“As for the war, it’s been a couple of years now, I guess. It was already starting up by the time I came to Skyrim, and that was over a year ago.” Back then, of course, it had been mostly small skirmishes here and there, not full-scale battles. Not like this.

Serana sighs. “As if we don’t have enough to worry about.”

“The war has nothing to do with us,” Eres reminds her. “I’m not tied to the Nords, and I’m not all that attached to the Empire, either. And you weren’t even around for any of this. It’s not our problem.”

“No, but,” Serana sighs again. “It just feels wrong to ignore it.”

That. That right there is why Eres trusts Serana with her life. Serana feels sympathy for people she’s never known, pity for the lost lives of people she had never met. Someone like that, someone with that much empathy, could never be bad.

“Maybe.” Eres will admit to that. When she thinks of Fellburg, and especially of Yosef and his family and what had happened to them, what had driven them to Fellburg to begin with, she too feels as though she should have a part in helping to end it, like she should pick a side. Like she should be working to end the war as much as she’s working to put an end to Harkon’s demented prophecy.

“But we have bigger problems, for now. If we don’t stop your father, it won’t matter who wins the war. We’ll all be dead either way.”

“Point,” Serana concedes.

They move quicker through the battlefield after that, not wanting to linger amongst the dead whose lives they could not afford to mourn.

“ _Ho there!”_

Eres stops, turns her face to the sun. “Never thought I’d be glad to hear that.”

Agmaer’s head pops up from over the guard post’s wooden-slat walls, peering down at them with bright eyes, but a tired smile. “Long time no see, Eres.”

“It hasn’t been that long.” The doors slowly start to pull open.

“Long enough.” Agmaer leans over the edge of the wall, resting his weight on his crossed arms. His small smile fades, and without it, he seems to have aged several years in the time since Eres saw him last. “Those damned leeches have been getting bolder—attacking us in broad daylight, even. We’ve had to double our night patrols just to keep up with them.” He pauses for a beat, looks at Serana, and adds, “No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” Serana says, entirely unbothered. “I’ve heard worse.”

Eres is sure she has—especially around Isran. Compared to him, Agmaer’s dislike of vampires is mild. “Any casualties?”

“None so far, thankfully. Celann got pretty banged up in the last fight, but he’s recovering well.” Agmaer shrugs. “We’ve gotten a good bunch of new recruits, too, so it’s not so bad. Still, I’m sure Isran is keen to see you. He’s been stomping around the place like a mad dog.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Eres mutters flatly, not looking forward to _that_ conversation. Isran, while a good man, was impatient, and was too quick to work himself up.

Finally, the doors are opened, and Eres and Serana make their way inside.

By now, many of the Dawnguard have met Serana, or at least know _of_ her—but as Agmaer had said, Eres sees plenty of new faces on their way up the hill, most of whom find no issue with staring openly at the both of them as they approach.

Especially Serana, who did not bother to use a glamor. Whose blood-bright eyes and deathly pale skin could not be mistaken for anything _but_ a vampire.

Thankfully, Eres supposed that all of them must have been informed of Serana’s existence, for though they stared—and some outright glared at her, cursing under their breath—none of them raised their weapons to her, and they entered the fort with little fanfare.

Isran finds her before she finds him, as she wanders the fortress with Serana at her heels, looking for Dexion.

“There you are,” Isran’s gravelly grumble of a voice reaches her ears, and she turns to find him walking briskly toward her—he must have been training, or perhaps he’d simply gotten more paranoid, as he wears his weapon at his back, glowing almost too-brightly in the dim halls of the fort. The light coming from the weapon strapped upon his back drapes his features in deep shadow, making his customary scowl seem even deeper than usual.

“Heard you were back—I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’ve been looking for _you_ ,” Eres replies, frowning a bit. “And Dexion. Where is he?” Isran’s frown deepens, and Eres feels a curl of dread low in her stomach. “Did something happen to him?”

“You’d best come with me,” is all that Isran offers, and he spins on his heels without giving her a chance to respond.

Eres exchanges a glance with Serana, wary. This doesn’t bode well.

They follow behind Isran’s brisk march as he leads them down a separate corridor and up a winding staircase Eres had never bothered to explore herself. When they’ve reached the second floor, Eres can just see the hall where her own quarters had been, but Isran leads them in the opposite direction.

Towards a door at which two Dawnguard stand posted on either side, weapons at the ready like they expected to be attacked.

“Stand aside!” Isran barks at them, and the two Dawnguard step aside as one and stand at attention.

Isran’s certainly been training them well enough, at least, as much as Eres dreads the idea that Dexion _requires_ such high security.

Isran unlocks the door for them, and holds it open until the both of them are inside. When he shuts the door, he locks it again just as quickly, pocketing the key.

“Oh…” Serana murmurs, coming to stand close at Eres’ side. Eres looks at her, following her gaze—and finds Dexion, seated idly at a table near the center of the room, a plate of unfinished food in front of him, fork held loosely in one hand—

And with a soiled bandage wrapped around his eyes.

“Oh.” Eres echoes.

“ _Oh_ , indeed,” Isran grumbles. “Go on, Dexion. Tell them the bad news.”

“Them?” Dexion tilts his head. It’s the strangest thing, how his head turns in their general direction when Isran speaks, but how he clearly doesn’t know exactly where they are. “Have they returned?”

“We have,” Eres answers, stepping forward. Closer to him, she can see that the bandage around his eyes has turned an unhealthy, reddish-brown around the edges, the color of old, stale blood. “What’s happened to you? We’ve found the scrolls.”

“Ah,” Dexion’s voice is tinged with remorse, but he smiles in her direction all the same. “I am sorry, my friend. I’m afraid I can no longer be of use in this matter.”

“What do you mean?” Serana asks. Again, Eres feels her at her elbow, standing so close to her that if Eres stepped back, she’d trip over her. This close, Serana’s height compared to her own is more apparent than usual—she has to look up to see her eyes.

“It’s my fault. In my haste to read the first of the scrolls you brought me, I neglected to prepare appropriately for the reading. I thought I would be able to allay the after effects, but…” Dexion sighs regrettably. “I was wrong. Now I am paying for my hubris.”

“So, the bandages…” It’s not the first time Eres has seen something like them before. “Are you…?”

“Blind?” Dexion nods. “I’m afraid so.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Serana asks. “Bring you a healer, or—something? There has to be a way to fix it, right?”

Isran shifts next to Dexion, crossing his arms. The look on his face tells Eres all she needs to know, even before Dexion answers her.

“Only time will tell,” Dexion says. “Over time, my vision may recover. But there is a chance that it may not.”

Guilt gnaws at Eres’ insides. Dexion, blind—because of them. Yes, he had chosen to read the scroll, but perhaps if they hadn’t been so pushy, if they hadn’t pressured him so strongly, perhaps he would have taken the extra time to prepare himself. Perhaps he wouldn’t be blind now if they hadn’t rushed him to read the first one. They hadn’t even let him rest after they’d arrived.

Serana lets out a long sigh, running a hand through her short hair, pushing it away from her face. It brings the look on her face to sharp focus—dismay, thinly veiled despair. “Then we’re finished,” she says quietly. “How can we hope to stop my father without knowing what the prophecy is?”

“Well,” Dexion says slowly, testingly, “there is another way I know of to read the scrolls. The question is—how far are you willing to go to retrieve Auriel’s Bow? How much are you willing to risk?”

Eres glances at Serana, and sees the same determination in her face that she feels. “We’ll do whatever it takes. Just tell us how.”

“I must tell you, I cannot guarantee that it will be without its consequences. Becoming blind as I am may be the least of your concerns.”

“We won’t know until we try,” Eres insists. “What do I need to do?”

“Very well.” Dexion nods. “Scattered across Tamriel are secluded locations known only as _Ancestor Glades_. There is one right here in Skyrim, near the forests of Falkreath. Performing the ritual of the Ancestor Moth within the glade should provide you with the answers you seek.”

“Right,” Serana braces a hand on her hip, her lips pinching together. “And what exactly is this ritual?”

“It involves carefully removing the bark from a Canticle Tree with a sacred tool known as a _draw knife_ , which will in turn attract the Ancestor Moths to you. Once you have attracted enough of them, they will provide you with the second sight you need in order to decipher the scrolls—just as any priest may do. Every Moth Priest, in fact, is taught this ancient ritual. However, few ever get the chance to perform it.” Dexion smiles, then, looking genuinely warmed. “You should consider yourself lucky if it works for you.”

“ _If_ it works,” Serana points out. “There’s a chance that it won’t.”

“There is,” Dexion admits. “But, I believe that for you, Eres—the path shall open to you. The ritual _will_ work for you, I am sure of it.”

Isran frowns. “What makes you so sure, old man?”

“One might say the Elder Scrolls have a mind of their own—they find _you_ as much as you find them. If the Scrolls did not want you to know them, they would not have allowed you to come in possession of them. One, perhaps. But three, in so short a time?” Dexion shakes his head. “It is clear to me that you are meant to be gifted with the knowledge contained in these scrolls.”

“So you say.” Serana still doesn’t sound entirely convinced, and Eres admits she isn’t quite sold on the idea either. “What about these moths is going to help her read the scrolls?”

“It is no coincidence that we are called _Moth_ Priests,” Dexion says mildly. “The voice of the Ancestor Moth has always been an integral part of reading the Elder Scrolls.”

“Moths don’t have voices,” Eres says. “They certainly don’t speak.”

Dexion chuckles. “Of course not—not in a manner than you or I can understand, anyhow. They are beyond our understanding. However, under the right circumstances—and for the right kind of person—they may lend their understanding. You see, the Ancestor Moths, even now, have maintained a connection to an ancient magic, one that allows the Moth Priests to decipher the scrolls. If you listen closely when you find the Ancestor Glade, you may even be able to hear their song—a soft, harmonious trilling.”

From the look Isran gives Eres, Dexion may as well have been trying to convince them that pigs could fly.

“It is through this ancestral chorus that the moths tap into a form of primal augur and become a conduit for deciphering the scrolls. By attracting the Ancestor Moths and keeping them close, the Moth Priest can utilize this conduit and share the moth’s augury—and in so doing, decipher the scrolls. It is said only the most practiced and knowledgeable priests can do it this way, and one must train for years to do so.”

“And yet, you expect Eres to do it—with zero training, and zero knowledge of this ritual of yours.”

“As I said,” Dexion repeats, “I believe that Eres is destined to read the scrolls. I believe she will be able to hear that chorus as well as any of us priests could have done.” Despite the utter, complete confidence of his tone, he ends his speech with a helpless shrug. “There is only one way to find out. What could it hurt to try?”

“You did just say she could go blind.” Serana glares at the man, despite him not being able to see it.

“There is that,” the priest admits lightly. “But—think of the knowledge you could gain. There is none better than you to attempt it, Eres, and I do not think you could find another priest in time.”

Eres sighs—long and loud. Why is it _always_ her? Did she piss off the Divines in a previous life?

“This is a big risk you’re taking on, Eres,” Isran frowns over at her, and Eres is surprised to see that he actually seems concerned about her—not just about the prophecy or taking out the vampires, but _her_ , specifically. “We can’t force you to go through with this.”

Serana looks at her, too, but says nothing to convince her one way or another. Instead she waits, watching her patiently. Waiting to see what she’ll say and do, waiting to support her in whichever decision she makes. She’d looked at her in the same way when they’d prepared to go into the Soul Cairn.

“There’s no one else who can do it,” Eres shrugs—there’s a part of her that’s irritated, frustrated, yes, but at this point she’s almost gotten used to having such heavy responsibilities and expectations thrust upon her with little to no warning. She’s learned to just roll with the punches and worry about it later. “So I guess I have to. We can’t let Harkon win this.”

Isran nods. He looks satisfied, maybe a little proud—or maybe she’s just seeing things. It’s hard to read a man who has at most three and a half emotions on a good day.

“So be it, then,” Isran says at last. “At least take the night to rest up—we know what happened to Dexion when he didn’t have enough rest. You can set out for the Glade in the morning. Hopefully it shouldn’t take you too long to find it.”

“Wait a minute, now—we still don’t know exactly how to perform this ritual, or even where to look for this Ancestor Glade in the first place. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“We know it’s in the forests of Falkreath, at least,” Eres offers.

Serana levels her with a look. “I might not be as well travelled as you are, but even I know that Falkreath’s forest is gigantic—depending on how you cut it, it stretches all the way to Whiterun. How exactly are we supposed to know where to look for it? It’d be like a needle in a haystack.”

Isran hums thoughtfully, but with the gravelly tone of his voice, it sounds almost closer to a growl.

“The people of Falkreath are a superstitious sort,” he starts. “You might start with talking to some of them. There may be areas of the forest they avoid, or old folk tales that might be able to point you in the right direction.”

Serana makes a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. “This whole thing has been just one wild goose chase after another.”

“You will find it,” Dexion intones, as matter of factly as though he could see the future of it. “If you _listen_.” Serana narrows her eyes at the man, and for a moment Eres wonders if she might hit him. “Listen for the song in the trees, Eres—you will find it. You are _meant_ to find it.”

Serana throws up her hands, spins, and leaves the room. Eres looks after her, not sure whether to be worried about how stressed she seems or amused by how fed up she was with Dexion’s cryptic nonsense.

“For what it’s worth,” Isran says quietly, looking at everything but her, “I believe in you, too.”

Eres stares at him. When the hell had Isran gone so soft?

As if sensing her thoughts, he scowls at her. “Go on, get going. The faster you get some rest, the faster you can go hunting for that Glade—and the faster we can put an end to all this.”

She hesitates a moment longer, looking at him wonderingly. “Right,” she says at last, nodding as much to herself as to him. “…Thank you.”

She turns before he replies, to save him from the mortification of it if nothing else, but she hears his grumbled, “Yeah, yeah,” behind her as she leaves, all the same.

Eres finds Serana exactly where she thought she would be—pacing restlessly in Eres’ quarters, grumbling under her breath. When she sees Eres, she stops, momentarily, but only long enough to shoot her a heated glance and turn away.

Eres closes the door behind her, and sets her pack down beside the wall.

“Are you alright?” She asks, cautious.

“ _Me_?” Serana spins to look at her incredulously, scoffs, and turns to practically throw herself into the chair at the desk in a corner of the room. “You’re asking me if I’m alright?”

“That…is what I asked, yes,” Eres’ frown deepens. “You seem upset.”

“I am upset.”

“And—what is it? Is it Dexion? Or Isran?”

“You’re an idiot,” Serana sighs out, closing her eyes.

Eres chews at her lips, wracking her brain. She sits carefully down upon the edge of the bed, facing her, trying to figure out how to navigate a conversation she’d clearly lost the script for.

“So you’re upset with me, then?”

Serana looks up at her, sending her a deadpan look. “As I said, you’re an idiot. I’m not upset with you. I’m _worried_ about you—since apparently no one else is. _Including you_.”

“Oh,” Eres blinks. Alright, maybe she should have expected that, but to be fair, Serana’s way of expressing _worry_ looked a lot like anger. “This is about the ritual, then? With the scrolls?”

“Obviously.” Serana crosses her arms. Then she crosses her legs. Then her leg begins to shake, bouncing up and down with anxious, pent up energy. She doesn’t look at Eres at all, but instead points her glare at a random, innocent book upon the shelf near Eres’ bed. “It’s too dangerous. You heard what he said. You could go _blind_ , and he said that’s the least that could happen. It could be worse than that. We don’t even know what we’re walking into—what _you’re_ walking into.”

Eres frowns. “This whole thing has been dangerous. Everything—since the beginning. Since the moment I found you in the Crypt, it’s been dangerous. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

Serana closes her eyes, sighing. “That’s different.”

Eres is _lost_. She wishes she could have a map of Serana’s thoughts, her emotions, some way to understand exactly where she’d taken a wrong turn and ended up lost up a creek without a paddle—there was something to this conversation she’s missing, and she can’t figure out what it might be.

Of _course_ it’s dangerous. Eres can’t even remember the last time she’s done something that hasn’t been explicitly dangerous in some way. Since becoming a Vigilant, walking into danger has been, essentially, part of her job description. Being part of the Dawnguard is no different, and partnering up with a vampire to take down her father who’s hellbent on sending the world into an apocalyptic nightmare—literally—definitely isn’t any definition of the word ‘safe’.

Hell, compared to walking into the Soul Cairn, the Ancestor Glade sounds like a casual evening stroll. She just doesn’t _get it_.

“How is that any different from what we’ve been doing?” Eres asks. “I could have died a dozen times up to now—I’m mortal, remember? This ritual _possibly_ blinding me isn’t the greatest outcome, but—”

“It’s different because it’s _you_ ,” Serana spits out. “Not us.” Eres’ brows meet—and a cog begins to turn. “It’s different because I can’t _help_ you with this. You’re on your own. I can help you fight. I can protect you—I _have_ protected you. Even in the Soul Cairn, I had—” Serana sighs, wrings her hands together, staring down at them. “I had some control over the situation. I could _do_ something if something went wrong. I don’t have any way to help you with this. It’s all up to you. You’re the one taking all the risk.”

Ah.

Well. Now it made sense.

“Well,” Eres claps her hands on her thighs, stands. “That’s true,” she admits. Serana looks at her, and though the heat in her eyes had faded, she still looks as upset as before—just less angry about it.

“But look at this way. Say I don’t do it. What happens then?” Eres doesn’t have to wait for an answer: they both know it. “We all die. The sun goes out, your father gets his way, I die,” Serana’s face twists into a grimace, “ _everyone_ dies, and then you all die anyway—because your father is an idiot who doesn’t realize that turning off the sun would also kill off his food supply.”

Serana snorts at that, and Eres smiles—just a little.

“If I do it, say I do go blind, or, whatever else might happen to me. Maybe I go insane.” Wouldn’t be the first time some relic had threatened to do that. “But we get the information we need to stop your father, and we save everyone. The choice is clear.”

“It’s not much of a choice, though, is it.”

Eres shrugs. “There’s a choice. We could lay down and die, if you’d like. Again, in your case.”

Serana picks up one of the thin, leather-bound journals cluttering her desk and throws it at her head. She ducks, and it hits something behind her that topples and clatters to the ground, shattering on impact.

“Oh, shit—”

“See what happens when you throw things?” Eres crosses the room to look—there’s a smattering of green shards across the floor, scattered farther across the room than what seemed possible.

“I hope it wasn’t too important,” Serana’s voice sounds at her side, sheepishly guilty rather than morose or angry. It’s a welcome change, as ridiculous as it seems.

Eres straightens; looks at her. The shadow over Serana’s eyes doesn’t seem quite so dark anymore.

“Do you feel better?” Serana frowns at her, and Eres raises her brows. “Well?”

Serana crosses her arms over her chest, shrugging. “A little, I guess.”

“That’s what’s important then.” Serana looks at her, perplexed, and Eres shrugs at her. “Not—whatever this thing is. If you feel better, that’s what matters. I think this is one of Isran’s things anyways.”

“Oops,” Serana says, with absolutely none of the guilt from earlier.

“You could at least pretend to care.”

“Hm, no.” Serana’s shrug this time is free, lighthearted. “I’m all out of caring. Spent it all on you.”

“I’m honored,” Eres says dryly.

“As you should be.” To someone else, with someone else, that phrase might have been a joke, might have been sarcastic. But to her, Serana says it with meaning—she holds her gaze, looks at her like she _means_ it. Looks at her with something in her eyes that Eres can’t quite get a read on. “I don’t get attached to people easily. I don’t _care_ easily.”

“Then I am honored,” Eres repeats, this time honestly. “I care about you, too.”

Serana looks back at her, a strange, thoughtful look on her face, somewhere between a deep consideration and hesitance. Eres watches her, waiting, not quite sure what she’s thinking, but more than willing to allow Serana the time she needs to gather her thoughts.

What Serana does next, however, is the last thing Eres had expected—suddenly, seemingly coming to a decision, Serana moves forward, closing the distance between them, and wraps her arms around Eres’ shoulders to pull her close.

Surprised, it takes Eres a moment to remember to hug her back. It’s strange how Serana’s body is pleasantly cool—she’s not sure she’ll ever quite get used to that, but it’s not as unsettling as she thought it might be. Instead it just feels rather comfortable. Her skin doesn’t crawl where Serana touches her, she doesn’t feel anxiety bubbling in her chest—though she does feel something else swoop low in her stomach, something that makes it feel like her organs might just drop out of her if she moved too suddenly.

Serana squeezes her just a bit too tightly, but Eres doesn’t complain.

After a moment, Serana mutters into her ear, “If you go blind, I’m kicking your ass.”

Tension successfully broken, Eres laughs. “Sure, you might be able to take me that way.”

Serana pulls back then, looks very pointedly down at her as if to remind her that she’s several inches taller—as though Eres could have forgotten that. “You realize I could put you through a wall, right?”

“I am well aware.” Aware, and definitely not a little conflicted about it. “I’ll try not to tempt you.”

“Too late,” Serana says, on her way out, and throws her a smile that’s a little too impish for Eres’ sanity. Eres _knows_ she’s only messing with her. It doesn’t stop her brain from leaping to several different conclusions at once, each of them more a _temptation_ than the last.

Eres shakes her head, banishing _those_ thoughts from her mind. _It’s not like that_ , she tells herself—reminds herself, really, and not for the first time even that same day. Serana hardly meant what it sounded like she meant. She was just the type of woman who liked to get under people’s skin, and she’d found the easiest way to get under Eres’.

That’s all there was to it.


	12. Unseen Visions

ACT III  
CHAPTER XII  
UNSEEN VISIONS

In the morning, Eres wakes early for breakfast, spends the hour fielding questions from both old Dawnguard and new, and then makes her way up to Dexion’s room with her journal in one hand and quill and inkwell in the other.

“Good morning,” Dexion greets her mildly, when she enters. “I wasn’t expecting another visitor so early.”

“Isran,” Eres nods to him, a bit surprised to see him just hovering in Dexion’s quarters as he is. The man merely nods back to her. “I’ve a few questions about the ritual.”

Dexion tilts his head, listening. “Your friend is not with you.”

“You can tell? Has your sight started to return?”

“No,” Dexion chuckles. “Only, she’s not usually the quiet sort. She’s very…obstinate.”

Well, that’s one way of putting it.

“She’s—gone ahead,” she says haltingly, figuring it best not to mention exactly _why_ Serana had left ahead of her. She knows, of course, that Isran is aware that Serana must feed sometimes, but it’s probably better not to mention it in front of him, all the same. “She’s going to meet me in Falkreath.”

After much deliberation the previous night, staying up later than Eres might have liked, they had decided it would be best for Serana to leave for Falkreath as soon as possible.

With Serana’s vampiric speed, she could reach the area far quicker than Eres could even on the fastest horse, and she could at least start the search for the glade while waiting for Eres to join her. It just so happened that Serana hadn’t fed in a couple of days, also.

“Smart,” is all that Isran says to that.

Eres takes a seat at the table across from Dexion, and readies her quill as she opens to a blank page in her journal. “The ritual,” she starts. “Go over it again for me. In detail.”

“Very smart,” Dexion agrees with Isran. “First,” he begins, “you must find the Ancestor Glade…”

Eres writes down each step of the ritual as he tells it to her, perhaps in far more detail than she needs to. In the end, the ritual is far simpler than it sounds:

Find the glade. Use the draw knife on the canticle tree. Find and attract the ancestor moths until she can hear—humming? A song? She’s still not entirely sure on that end, but she hopes she’ll figure it out once she gets there. _Then_ she can read the scrolls, in the order Dexion describes for her. First Blood, then Dragon, then Sun.

Easy.

Only, “Where do I find this draw knife?”

“Oh!” Dexion perks up suddenly. “I’m glad you asked. Here,” he, with Isran’s help, crosses the room, hands held in front of him to feel his way around. After some uncertainty, he finds the desk, and a small, worn satchel laid atop of it. From within it, he pulls a strange-looking tool.

It looks almost like a small handsaw, except rather than the serrated blade pointing downward as one might expect of a saw, the blade is situated perpendicular to its handle, so that it serves as more of a scraping tool than a cutting one.

“It is a boon that each of us is expected to own one, even if we never have the chance to use it.” Isran guides Dexion back to his seat, and the old man very gently pushes the tool towards her.

Picking it up, the draw knife is much heavier than she had expected it to be, weighing nearly as much as Dawnbreaker upon her back, and much more awkward to wield. She opens her pack, and, untying the cords around her bedroll, unrolls it just enough so that she can tuck the knife securely inside of it to protect its edge.

“So I just take this to the tree and scrape with it?”

“Yes,” Dexion confirms. “It is the scent of the bark and sap that will draw the moths to you, though they must be within a certain distance.”

Eres nods. “And how will I know which is the Canticle Tree?”

“The Canticle Tree grows wider than it does tall, and its trunk often twists around itself. The bloom of its canopy is a beautiful pink-ish color, even in Winter. It will be the most brilliant, stunning tree within the Glade, I am sure of it.” Dexion sounds notably wistful, as though imagining the sight of it that he may never see again.

Again, Eres feels guilt twist at her stomach. She pushes it down, swinging her pack back onto her shoulders. She tucks her journal safely inside her robes and stands.

“I’ll be on my way, then. I’ve wasted enough time this morning.”

Dexion smiles pleasantly at her. “Have a safe journey, my friend. I wish you the best of luck.”

She nods at him, then remembers belatedly that he can no longer see her. “Thank you, Dexion.”

She looks up to see Isran watching her, and when she catches his gaze, the man nods solemnly, his lips pressed tightly together. “May Stendarr preserve you, Sister.”

“And you, Isran,” Eres returns, and she bids them both farewell. Hopefully, the next time she sees them, it will be with Auriel’s Bow in hand.

As it so happens, Eres comes upon the aftermath of one of the smaller scale skirmishes between the Rebels and Imperials on her way to the pass near Helgen. She might not even noticed it at all, with the bodies so far from the main road, if it hadn’t been for the horse grazing aimlessly nearby, as if impatiently waiting for its master.

Eres stops in the road, considering it. She looks around, and sees not a single living soul in the vicinity beside herself and the typical wildlife.

The horse must have belonged to one of the officers in either army, she imagines, and with its master dead, it had just been left behind by whoever had survived—if anyone had. Stepping closer to it, eyeing its saddlebags, the colors on its saddles, it’s plain to see that it was a Rebel horse, barrel-chested and bred for war.

The Empire, she knew, were a bit more uppity about their horses. They preferred the sleeker ones, built for speed and agility more than brute strength. At one time, centuries ago, cavalry had been more common amongst Imperial troops, but they had never deployed them in Skyrim, and they certainly wouldn’t waste such fine bred horses on the likes of the Nords.

Well, no one else was using it.

Eres tuts to the horse, raising her hand to him. He eyes her warily, but sniffs at her hand as she offers it—and then presses his snout into her torso, breathing deep of her scent. She allows him, much as she doesn’t quite enjoy the feeling of his hot breath puffing through her robes.

Satisfied, the horse straightens, neighing softly.

That’s as good an answer as she’s going to get.

Once more, Eres turns to look around her, and, seeing nothing, she swings herself quickly into its saddle and urges the horse into an easy canter.

Through the pass, she must move slowly, but the benefits of riding a warhorse meant that it was not so nervous around dead bodies, having been around plenty in the past. It wasn’t shy in the slightest about stepping on legs or arms or even torsos as it went, making Eres wince at the sound of brittle, frozen bones snapping underfoot every now and then.

Even so, the traversal through the pass was far quicker than it could have been on foot, and, pushing the beast into a gallop, she made incredible time past Helgen and down to Riverwood.

She rested the night at the Sleeping Giant Inn, allowing the horse to rest its weary muscles as much as her own. But the next morning, she was off again, taking the road west towards Falkreath.

It shouldn’t have felt so strange to spend but a mere few days without Serana at her side, but it had. Eres had spent much of her life before meeting her travelling alone, working alone, being alone in general—even at Fellburg, as much as she loved Yosef and his family, she was not often constantly surrounded by them at every hour of the day, and often had sought out her own time to be alone with her thoughts.

Serana, however—being with her at all hours of the day had simply felt natural. She had gone so long with Serana at her side that being without her felt more unnatural than being _with_ her—like she’s suddenly lost one of her limbs. It feels… empty, somehow, without her around.

Perhaps she runs the horse a bit too hard in her eagerness to get to Falkreath, if the stablehand’s reaction to her handing him off is any indication, but she’d managed to cut the travel between Riverwood and Falkreath to a mere half-day, arriving sometime mid-afternoon rather than the middle of the night.

When Eres doesn’t find Serana at the inn, as agreed upon, she instead wanders the small town—Serana might not have expected her so soon, and if nothing else, she knows Serana will likely find her rather than the other way around.

Sure enough, while Eres is politely inspecting the wares of a marketstall whose owner had called to her, Eres feels a familiar presence manifest just over her shoulder.

“Took you long enough,” Serana mutters, by way of a greeting.

Eres smiles politely at the vendor, waving off their suggestions with a quick apology before she turns to face her. She’s not surprised to find the woman’s hood up, being in broad daylight, but she is a bit taken aback by the crisp green of her eyes.

“It was easier.” Serana shrugs, seemingly knowing what she’s thinking. “You actually made it here quicker than I thought you would.”

“Found a horse.”

Serana raises a brow as they step away from the stall, melting into the modest mid-day crowd. “You _found_ a horse?”

“That’s what I said, yes.” Eres sends her a conspiratorial smile. “It won’t be missed.”

“Ah,” Serana understands.

“Did you have any luck?”

“Unsurprisingly little,” Serana says. “There’s rumors here or there about _spooky things in the hills_ ,” she raises her hands in the air, waggling her fingers sarcastically, “but I haven’t found anything. Not unless you count a coven of _really_ pissed off witches.” Eres raises her brows at that one. “Yeah, yesterday was a bit of a day.”

“Are you alright?”

“Me? Haha,” Serana chuckles. “You should be asking about _them_. Hedgewitches, against a four-thousand year old vampire? They didn’t stand a chance.”

Eres eyes her. “I hope they were bad witches, then.”

“Considering they had a pit with a pile of old bones in it, I’d say so.” Serana shrugs. “They did have a few things I managed to pawn off, though. Gave me an opening to start asking people questions. At this point, though, pretty sure everyone’s gotten it in their heads that I’m up to no good. Even the Jarl’s men won’t speak to me now.”

“I’ve heard the Jarl is corrupt, anyways,” Eres mutters, “probably best his men haven’t taken too much of an interest in you.”

Even so, she finds herself eyeing the guard warily when she sees them nearby, but none of them seem even remotely interested in the two of them beyond a cursory glance.

“Lady Eres! Is that you?”

Eres spins, heart jumping into her throat, just as she sees the open surprise and interest written on Serana’s face. A man approaches her, tall and broad and with an overly familiar grin upon his rugged face. At his heels, a young lad follows behind, with an armful of tanned leather draped over his arms, crossed in front of his waist. The boy smiles at her, a bit weakly, sweat dripping from his brow, form sagging with the weight he carries.

“Tomlen?” Eres stares at the man. Has she been away That long that she barely recognizes him? And his boy, the tanner—what was his name again? When had he grown so tall?

Tomlen has grown a beard since she last saw him—not unkempt, being a blacksmith, but enough that his face looks entirely different with the beard framing it as it does, making his features more angular, more roguish—it’s a good look for him, even she can admit that.

The last time she’d seen his son, he’d been just a few inches shorter than her. She can’t remember ever speaking with him directly, but she’d seen him trailing Tomlen enough to know of him. Now he was several inches taller, his body awkwardly gangly in that coming-of-age kind of way where it seemed like the rest of his body hadn’t quite caught up with his height.

Tomlen’s grin widens. When he approaches her with his arms out, she tenses, expecting him to embrace her, but he instead claps a heavy, warm hand upon her shoulder, patting her so solidly that she can feel it to her bones.

“I knew I recognized you! Even in all those fancy robes and armor,” he says, still smiling. “I wondered where you’d been. It’s been months! When might you be coming back to Fellburg? You know it’s doing well these days, don’t you? Yosef finally got that mine open over by the mountainside.”

“Did he?” Still, Eres finds herself glancing at his son. She can’t remember his name for the life of her. As glad as she is to hear Fellburg’s doing well, she feels a bit blindsided. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Oh? I thought Yosef wrote to you at the temple.” Tomlen scratches at his beard, humming low in his throat. “I suppose maybe you’ve not gotten them—have you been there lately?”

“Ah,” Eres looks back at Serana, hovering nearby with veiled interest, but not approaching. “I haven’t been. Something’s kept me away for some time now. I’m sure Gwyneth has got his letters tucked away somewhere for me when I return.”

Tomlen nods, then turns and shoves his boy forward. “Manners, boy. Greet your lady properly.”

Serana catches her eye, mouthing, _“Lady?”_ with a raised brow. Eres shakes her head minutely—she’ll have to explain later. Serana’s lips pull into a frown.

The boy ducks his head shyly. It takes him a bit longer than it should have to straighten again. “Evening, missus.” Tomlen clears his throat meaningfully. “Ah, I mean, Lady Eres. How are you?”

“Well, thank you,” she frowns, “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t remember your name.”

“Ah, it’s Tomas, your ladyship.” Somewhere behind her, Eres hears Serana snort. Tomlen shakes his head. “I don’t think we met officially before. You being so busy and all, of course,” and he bows his head again, tiredly.

Tomlen looks over Eres’ shoulder, smiles kindly. “And who might your friend be?”

Serana steps forward, extends a hand. When she grips Tomlen’s hand, Eres swears she sees the man wince. “Serana,” Serana says plainly, a polite, practiced smile on her lips. “It’s good to meet you.”

Tomlen’s laughs a bit, “Quite the grip you have,” he says, shaking out his hand when she releases it. “You’d be a fine blacksmith.” Eres sends Serana as veiled a warning look as she can muster. Serana hardly seems to even notice it. “What’s brought you to these parts, then,” he asks of Eres, “if not to come home?”

“Work, I’m sorry to say,” Eres says. “I won’t be home for some time yet.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

“It _is_ a shame,” Serana agrees, and the look she gives Eres is filled with meaning. “Maybe we should stop by.”

“I’m sure Yosef would be glad to see you.” Tomlen smiles, then notices his son sagging beside him. “I won’t keep you—Tomas might keel over if we take too much more of your time. But if you don’t mind my asking—what is it you do for work, Lady Eres? Yosef mentioned you were a Vigilant.”

“It is related to the Vigilants, yes,” Eres says slowly. “Actually, you may be able to help me.” Tomlen raises his brows. “Have you ever heard of a place called the Ancestor Glade? It’s reported to be in this area somewhere.”

“Ancestor Glade…” Tomlen rubs at his chin, scratching at the rough hairs of his beard. “I’m not familiar with the name.”

“It’s supposed to be a secluded location here in the forest, with a tree that blooms year round.”

“Ah,” Tomlen smiles, then starts to laugh. “I don’t know of any _Ancestor Glade_ , but when I was a boy, there _was_ a place the lads and I used to take our girls to… Women,” he says with a laugh, then seems to remember that _she_ is a woman and adds hurriedly, “There’s a tree there, has pink petals that fall down onto the ground beneath it. It was a… romantic place, when I was a boy.”

“Do you remember where it is?” Eres might have felt a little bad for the Moth Priests’ sacred grove if it weren’t for the fact that this is the best lead she could have asked for. If it hadn’t been for Tomlen—and other men—using the glade in such a way, they might have spent days trying to find it, if they found it at all.

“Do you have a map?” Eres produces it from her pack, as well as a worn stick of charcoal from her pocket.

Tomlen considers the map a moment, then uses the charcoal to circle an area not far at all from Falkreath, up in the mountains. “There’s a path that goes up the mountain side near here—can’t remember exactly where, but it’s in this area. You follow that path up and there’s a little cave near the top of the path, only just wide enough to fit a man if he ducks. If you go inside, it seems to end in a deadend, but there’s a sort of outcropping on either side of the cave. When I was a boy, there was a log we carried in and set across the gap up top to walk across, but it may not be there now.”

“We’ll find a way,” Eres promises. “Thank you, Tomlen. You’ve probably saved us quite a bit of time.”

“Of course, Lady Eres,” Tomlen smiles warmly. “I suppose growing up here had to pay off sometime,” he adds with a laugh. “I’ll tell Yosef you’re well for you.”

“Thank you. Tell them I’ll return when I can.” Tomlen nods, and then pats his boy on the back to usher him along.

As Tomlen fades out of earshot, Serana comes next to her, crossing her arms over her chest. “Who is Yosef?”

Eres frowns—something about Serana’s tone sounds almost accusatory. “A friend of mine back home.” She drops her eyes to the map, tries to calculate exactly how long it might take them to reach the path on foot—it seems just a few miles outside of Falkreath. If they leave now, they might be able to reach the area by mid-afternoon, which would give them several hours to look for the path that would lead them to the glade before it grew too dark to see the trail.

“Fellburg, you mean?” Serana asks. “Where _is_ your home, exactly? You’ve never really mentioned it.”

“A bit west of here.” Eres frowns down at the map in her hands—Tomlen had circled not a small area. Could she be sure the path was on the approach from the eastern side of the mountain range, or could it be that the path they were looking for would be in the opposite direction, more towards the south? If she chooses the wrong direction, it may take an extra day for them to find it, counting for the nighttime when they won’t be able to search as easily.

“West,” Serana says. “So, it’s on the way towards Solitude, then.”

“A bit closer to Markarth, actually,” Eres says absently. “It’s quicker to head up through Rorikstead to get to Solitude.”

“Hmm…”

Eres looks up at her, seeing Serana looking at her with narrowed eyes. “What?”

“It just seems a bit odd that we’ve known each other this long and you’ve never mentioned having family.”

Yes, that tone is definitely accusing her of something. Lying, perhaps. Omitting the truth. It wasn’t that Eres had done it on purpose—it had just never really been relevant. Serana had never really asked too much about her past, or her background.

“Because I don’t have family,” Eres responds evenly. “Not any blood-related family, anyways.” Serana frowns. “My father died a few years ago—he left me the estate I live in now, in Fellburg. I moved there about a year before I met you. I met Yosef and his family shortly after, and they moved in. They take care of the estate while I’m away.”

“Oh,” Serana blinks. “Yosef has a family? A wife?”

Eres’ brow furrows. “Yes,” she says slowly. “A wife and two children, unless they’ve had another since I left.” She didn’t know if Yosef and Johanna wanted more children, but she also wouldn’t be entirely surprised if that was the case. She doesn’t think she’s met any couple who loves each other more than those two do. “Why?”

Serana shrugs. “No reason. Just curious.” Whatever she’d seemed to be irritated about earlier, Eres must have resolved her concerns somehow. Perhaps it was only that she felt Eres hadn’t trusted her with the information.

Serana then looks pointedly at the map, then points up the main road—to the road leading north, which would take them to approaching the mountain from the eastern side. “I doubt it’s the other way,” she says, as if reading Eres’ mind. “That mountain crosses the border into Cyrodiil.”

Eres makes a face. Yeah, she’d rather avoid having to cross the border. It’s possible that the border had been less closely guarded when Tomlen was young, but she hopes even a hormone-driven teenage boy wouldn’t have trekked through another country just for some private time with a girl.

“Let’s get moving, then. Hopefully we can find it before nightfall.”

“If not, I can keep looking while you sleep.” Serana offers, casual. “Though I do worry about leaving you at camp all alone at night. There’s bandits in these parts—they’re in the Jarl’s pockets.”

“Or the Jarl’s in theirs,” Eres mutters. “We might end up having to cross by Pinewatch on the way up.” Serana glances at her, questioningly. “Those bandits’ home base. They like to catch travelers unaware from the bridge up above the road.”

“Oh?” Serana’s lips curl into a slow smile. “Perhaps we should teach them a lesson, then.”

Eres considers that—it’s on their way, the bandits were preying on innocents, and they were doing so right under the Jarl’s nose in such a way that it was clear the Jarl had been turning a blind eye to it. She may not be able to confront the Jarl directly, but she could certainly confront the bandits.

“I like the way you think.”

“Good,” Serana’s smile turns downright dangerous. “I was starting to feel a bit hungry.”

“I don’t suppose you hear any humming,” Serana says, when they happen upon a path that, at least by appearances, does wind up the mountainside. There’s no signage or any indication to confirm that it may lead to the glade. “Any moths singing in your ears?”

Eres sends her a dry look and chooses not to dignify that with a response. Instead, she starts to march up the incline, up the beaten path into the mountains.

“I wonder why this trail is still here. It doesn’t look like it’s used much.”

Eres shrugs. “Probably just hasn’t been reclaimed yet.” She can’t quite say how she can tell, but the earth is trying—she can see the buddings of new growth beneath her feet in places, but in splotchy, uneven patterns, like the growth can’t quite catch a good hold of it yet. “Give it a few decades and people might not even be able to tell this was here anymore.”

“Remind me to check back, then.”

Though Eres is mortal herself, the phrase doesn’t phase her. Elves, while not immortal, are known to have a lifespan of several centuries. Being only half-Bosmer, herself, she can’t say exactly how long she’ll live—assuming, that is, that she dies of old age to begin with rather than anything else—but a few decades to her sounds like a short time from now. Hell, by Bosmeri standards, even at fifty she’d be considered little more than a young adult with plenty of room to grow.

How long would her mom have lived? She wonders. Would her mother have outlived her, forced to watch Eres age prematurely and die before she did? She can’t imagine that would have been easy. She can’t imagine watching someone she loves waste away in front of her, knowing she can do nothing to stop it.

“Looks like this is it,” Serana points, towards a cave they can see at the top of the next incline, little more than a dark crevice carved into the mountainside. “Or, I hope it’s the glade and not some random bear cave.”

“I don’t think a bear could fit in that.”

When they reach it, the crevice is only marginally larger than it had appeared from a distance. At its widest point it was only a few measly feet across, but with jagged edges that made the actual width of the channel much smaller than it appeared. The crevice sharpened to a point, in an upside-down V, the peak of which met only a few scant inches over the top of Serana’s head.

Eres went first, ducking so that she could fit her head—the crevice may have been taller, but the top of it was too wide for a head to fit through. She waited on the other side as Serana entered, half-bent over, trying to hide her amusement and failing.

When Serana straightens on the other side, groaning, Eres laughs. “Must be nice to be so short.”

“I’m not _that_ much shorter than you.” Eres hasn’t _measured_ it exactly, but, “Your boots have heels, anyway.”

“Like an _inch_ ,” Serana huffs, “if even that. Face it, Eres—you’re tiny.”

“I’m well above average, actually, thank you very much.” At least for a Bosmeri woman, anyways. She’s always been quite thankful she wasn’t as short as most of them—even _she_ managed to tower over most Bosmer women she’d come across. Hell, even the men weren’t that tall—the tallest ones were often only as tall as Eres herself, at a respectable five-six. On the Nord side, however… It wasn’t her fault they were related to giants or something. “Not all of us can be six feet.”

“I’m not six-foot,” Serana says, matter-of-factly. “I’m six-three.”

“Oh, _pardon me_ ,” Eres drawls. Damn Nords. “Is that with or without the heel?” Please say with, Eres thinks. Six-two is tall enough as it is.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” _Ass._

“Looks like the tree-bridge is still here,” Eres notes, as they come to the top of the incline on the left side. As Tomlen had described, the cave opens into what appeared to be a dead end, with an incline on the left and something like a cliff on the other—but on the other side, Eres could see what appeared to be a tunnel of some kind, or an opening in the wall where just the tiniest bit of light was filtering through from the other side. There must be a skylight in the glade somewhere.

“That thing must be decades old, Eres. Be careful.” Serana says this, and then she lightly just _jumps_ to the other side. Just hops across the ten-foot gap as if it’s nothing. Eres scowls at her. Serana smiles. “Want a lift?”

“Absolutely not.” And let Serana feel even more smug about it? She was already bad enough as it was.

Instead of taking her up on that offer, Eres bends over and unclasps the two buckles on either side of her boot near the sole, and then the two others at the front of the toe and back of the heel. Then she lifts her foot and pulls the sole of her boots clean off, one by one.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I don’t want to fall.” Eres holds the soles in her hands, eyes the distance—while carefully ignoring the possible drop—and, at a pace just a bit faster than her normal walking speed, she pads her way across the old log, feeling the soft, pillowy texture of moss underfoot and the creaking of old, tired wood that ached beneath even her modest weight.

When she reached the other side with no accidents, Serana eyed her with not a small amount of bewilderment. “Why, exactly, do your soles come off like that?”

“I _am_ an elf, Serana.” Eres brushes off the bottoms of her feet and replaces said soles, taking the time to buckle them appropriately and make sure it seals as it should with a quick, painless prodding with her magic. “A _wood_ elf, if you recall.”

“I thought you were raised here. I’ve read about the elves in Valenwood, but,” Serana trails off, still watching her with an odd look on her face as if she’s only just coming to realize that Eres isn’t just a human with funny little pointed ears.

“I was raised in the Imperial City.” Serana’s brows raise high on her forehead, and Eres shrugs. “My father was—he wasn’t a rich man, but he had connections.”

Eres is not ignorant. Growing up in the Imperial City had been growing up in the very seat of privilege—things like war and famine and the sorts of things that children in Skyrim just _grew up_ knowing of had never touched her. Her father had spent most of his time either gambling or drinking, but between her tutors and caretakers, she hadn’t wanted for much. Outside of the loss of her mother and her father’s general assholery, Eres could think of little about her childhood she could reasonably complain about, given the kinds of things she saw in Skyrim daily.

Granted, they’d lost all of that when she was a teenager, a few years before she’d come to Skyrim, but by that time she was well equipped enough to handle it.

“How exactly did an Imperial come to marry—or, well, have a kid with a Bosmer, exactly?”

“My father was a Nord, actually.” And he wouldn’t have let anyone tell him otherwise. His family line dates back to _royalty_ , he’d say. We had _castles_ , he’d say. They’d reclaim their rightful place as a royal house one day, just you wait until his money comes in—Eres has to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at the memories. “Fellburg belonged to one of our great-uncles, or something. He met my mother while he served as quartermaster for the Imperial Army.”

Or so he told it, anyway. She’s not entirely sure he didn’t just follow an Imperial camp around to sell his wares and _claim_ he was a quartermaster to anyone who asked it. She couldn’t imagine him taking orders from anyone, even if he hadn’t been on the front lines. He just had never been the kind of man to listen to anyone but himself.

“In Valenwood? What was the Empire doing there?”

“No, she’d left Valenwood by then—supposedly to explore, or travel, or…something, I don’t know.” She shrugs helplessly. “I know next to nothing about her. I remember… just a couple of things, here and there, like that she smelled like sandalwood all the time, and that my father used to yell at her for not wearing shoes. I don’t remember anything else.”

Eres couldn’t even remember what the woman looked like, what she sounded like—how she acted. Had her mother been kind? She’d like to think she was, but Eres can’t remember it. She imagines her mother must have been beautiful, as shallow as her father often was. But what kind of woman could have fallen for a man like him? What kind of woman would have allowed herself to be yelled at and treated the way he’d treated her?

When Eres was young, too young to understand these things, her father had told her, “she’s gone”. Not where she’d gone, not how—not, “I don’t know where she is”, not “She left”, but “She’s gone”. As she’d grown older, she assumed that meant her mother was dead. Or had died. Or was at least presumed to be dead, or maybe missing. As a child, she’d thought something must have taken her mother away, something must have stolen her. How else could she have just been there one day and disappeared the next?

Eres was twelve by the time she realized her mother may have left on purpose, of her own volition.

Her father had met a woman. Eres had thought her pretty, she supposed, though her hair was always just a smidge too red to be natural, and she always complained she was in pain until one of the nursemaids would give her the special syrup that the adults kept locked away in a cabinet too high for young Eres to reach. Later, Eres had learned that syrup had been laudanum, a derivative of opium, and highly addictive. But that had been years later, years after she’d watched her father and this woman pull each other apart at the seams.

Eres had loved her, maybe. Or maybe she’d simply latched on to the mother figure she’d been desperate for. She remembered she’d cried when her father told her she wasn’t coming back. She’d cried tears of grief the first time he’d told her that, mourning the loss of a woman who she’d thought would become her mother.

Eres cried tears of joy when she returned a few months later, her father brandishing her like he’d gotten Eres a present. “Look who’s back!” he’d said, like she’d merely stepped away for a quick stroll around the corner and had not been absent for months on end.

Then there was the second, and the third, and the fourth times. The shotgun marriage and the divorce three years later—she’d been ten. Then at twelve, her father had brought home someone else, and the cycle had begun anew.

Eres had loved her more than the first, but she’d been glad to see her go when she left for the last time.

_I can’t escape him_ , Eres had thought. _But you can._ At least they had a choice.

The third woman, when Eres was sixteen, Eres did not love. She could not even have said she liked her—Eres had avoided her when she could, interacted with her as little as possible. She knew this woman would last no longer than the first. No longer than her mother had.

“Eres?” Eres looks up from the ground, finding Serana watching her carefully, concern in her eyes. “You went somewhere.”

“Sorry. Just reminded me of him.” She shakes her head. She hasn’t thought of him in years. She doesn’t plan on starting now. “I didn’t have the best relationship with my father. He wasn’t trying to end the world, at least, but,” she shrugs. “Still wasn’t great.”

“Men,” Serana mutters. Eres agrees. “I’m sorry to remind you. I just—thought that was something only Bosmer did. Not wear proper shoes, I mean.”

“Depends on what you call proper, I suppose. I _am_ Bosmer, if only half. Skyrim is too cold for it, but if it was warmer…” She shrugs. She’d certainly used to wander around the estate—her childhood home, that was—without shoes on often enough. Her father had fired the Bosmeri woman who’d taught her how to wrap her feet after Eres had stepped on a piece of glass when she was seven. As if the woman had been the one to put it there.

Eres, admittedly, had been a child then. Walking around barefoot wasn’t that odd for a child. As she’d grown older it had become much stranger, and she’d instead fallen in line with imperial customs.

But she would admit sometimes, it was tempting. At least in places like these, which reminded her of what she imagined Valenwood must look like—a natural utopia, hidden away from the world at large with its harsh angles and dreary greys. Nothing but soft brush underfoot and the beauty of nature surrounding her. A part of her itched to experience this place as a Bosmer might, but she was not Bosmer. Not really.

Perhaps if her mother had raised her, she might have learned to listen to the earth as they did. For her though, it has always been silent, even when she buries her feet in the dirt and concentrates as hard as she can—she’s never been able to hear the Song she’s read about in books.

“Just imagine how dirty your feet would get.”

“There are spells for that, you know,” Eres says mildly, chuckling. “They have enchantments.”

“Oh?” Serana looks at her with interest. “Is that how they do it?”

Eres shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only read about it. I had a tutor from Valenwood for a time, but she didn’t speak of it often. I think talking about it made her too homesick.”

“I can imagine.” Serana says. “Valenwood sounds like a magical place—cities in the trees? Trees that _move_? A whole living, breathing forest, like an entity of its own? I’d love to visit some day.”

“So would I,” Eres says, and there’s a certain curling sort of warmth in her chest as she considers it.

Perhaps, when this is over, Eres can arrange for a vacation. Tomlen did say Fellburg was doing well. Maybe she could take a trip to Valenwood. Just her and Serana, with no doomsday prophecies weighing them down.

Except, Harkon isn’t all that Eres has to worry about. There’s also the Vigilants. The mission she’s left unfinished in Windhelm, thinking that the vampire uprising around Skyrim had been related. She’s not even sure it is, now, or if it ever was. Perhaps a smarter person would have cut their losses and let Serana and the Dawnguard deal with it on their own, without her help.

Eres was not always a smart person.

There is a skylight within the glade, as it turns out, but it takes several minutes of walking in near-complete darkness from the tunnel before the glade opens up and the skylight bears down on them and the glade unfolds in front of them like something out of a painting of the heavens itself.

“ _Wow_ ,” Serana breathes, spinning in a slow circle to take it all in. “This place is _beautiful_. A place like this, hidden away for so many years… We might be the first people to see this place in decades.”

“It is beautiful,” Eres agrees. The skylight especially, bathing the glade in an almost ethereal glow, makes the place look heaven-sent and divine. She thinks she could spent a lifetime in this place and never get sick of looking at it.

But they’re on a mission.

“It looks like that might be the Canticle Tree.” Eres points—points down from the top of the glade where they stand down into a deep, open pit-like structure in the center of the glade, where the skylight hits strongest. It looks as though a god might have just dug out a hollow in the center of the glade and left it there, with Eres and Serana at the top of it and the bottom several dozen feet below.

Crisp, clear blue water shimmers from beneath them, so crystal clear and clean Eres might not have even realized it was water had it not been for the shadows of lily pads floating atop its surface on the bottom of the pools beneath them. The water was so clear that it almost looked like they floated on air—only the reflection of light from the sky made its blue tint more apparent, made it so that Eres could see that it was indeed water down there and not just mysteriously floating vegetation.

At the center of that wide pool that covered the hollowed out bottom of the glade, there was a singular tree—it was taller than it was wide, unlike what Dexion had described, but its trunk did split into two and twist around itself in an almost braid-like structure, and its petals were a vibrant, pinkish-white that near glowed beneath the lighting from above. Every so often, a petal or few would drop from its branches, fluttering aimlessly to drift on the surface of the shallow pool beneath it.

“I can see why your friend said they brought girls here,” Serana says after a moment. “It’s gorgeous. Even _I_ might be persuaded if someone brought me here for a date.”

Eres looks at her, raising a brow. “Really?”

“What?” Serana defends, brows meeting. “It’s romantic, isn’t it?” She shrugs helplessly. “Or I assume so, anyways. Not like I would know.”

Eres hates the deprecation in her tone, but she has no consolation to offer. “I wouldn’t really know, either. It would be a nice place for a picnic, maybe—if you wanted to come out this far for one, that is.”

“I don’t think a _picnic_ is what they came out here for.”

“I was choosing to ignore that,” Eres tells her matter-of-factly. She’s well aware of what reason a young teenage boy would have to bring a girl to such a secluded location. She might be single, but she’s not an idiot. “Seems wrong to do that kind of thing here. Come on, let’s get this ritual over with.”

“Oh, yes, let’s see if you can hear the Moth’s song.”

“Well, now you’re making it sound stupid.” Eres has to watch her step on the way down—it looks like at some point, steps were carved into the descent, but they hadn’t been maintained for so long that some of them crumble when she puts her weight on them. She slips unexpectedly more times than she’d like to admit.

“Well, it _is_ stupid. And you’re stupid for doing it.”

They reach the bottom, and Eres takes off her boots to walk into the pool. The cool buzz she feels beneath her skin as she steps into it is probably just her imagination. Or wishful thinking, one of the two.

Serana hesitates a bit longer than she does, but ultimately joins her, boots also left by the edge of the pool. “If you go blind I’m gonna have to come get you anyways,” she grouses, when Eres looks at her.

Eres sends her a smile she hopes is at least mildly assuring, then pulls the draw knife from her bag. Though she examines the trunk of the tree closely, she can’t see anything that might hint that someone has done this ritual here before—there are no marks in the bark aside from the faded carvings of initials done by unpractised teenaged hands.

She scrapes the knife against the bark—and it bounces uselessly against the rough, tough bark.

“I think you have to do it harder than that.”

“Yeah, I figured that part out myself, thanks,” Eres mutters, and tries again—this time using even more of her strength than she thinks is necessary.

A razor-thin shaving of bark drifts listlessly down to float in the pool at her feet. Serana bends to pick it up, tucking it into the belt around Eres’ waist. “I’m not sure if you’re supposed to have it on you or what, but—”

Eres scrapes again, and this time she manages to slow at the end so that she can tear off the sheet of bark on her own rather than making Serana pick up the shaving for her. She tucks that into her waistbelt too, and then goes for a third—just to be safe. Her fingers feel heavy and sticky with sap, and whenever she moves her hand her fingers take just a bit longer to pull apart than they naturally should.

After the third, she stuffs that one into the top of her robes, and carries the draw knife with her as she wanders aimlessly around the pool, searching for moths. Serana follows at her heels, point out where she sees moths fluttering in the darkness up above.

Back up the incline they go, collecting moth swarms on the way—first just three or four, then seven. Then a swarm of nearly ten find her and flap distractingly around her head in dizzying circles.

“This is probably going to sound a bit weird, but—you’re starting to, well… _Glimmer_.” Serana says from behind, and Eres glances at her. Serana has taken several steps back and refuses to get closer. “I mean, you are actually glowing. Or the moths are,” her brows pinch together, mouth pulling into a frown. “I actually can’t tell. You’re just—surrounded with light. Can you see it?”

Eres tries to, but all she can see is the damn moths flying around, and the faintest hint of something gleaming just beyond the ring of them fluttering around her body. “Not really.”

She _does_ hear a hum, reverberating somewhere between her ears—but she’s not sure if that’s real or something she’s hearing only because she’s wanting to hear it, expecting to.

Eres keep walking. Serana points out another group of them almost the same moment they seem to notice her—as one, a flock of several moths join those already surrounding her. There’s so many of them now that she can hardly see where she’s going, but Serana manages to grab her hand, tugging her along.

“How many of these damn things do I need?”

Eres knows this is kind of the _point_ , but it’s surprisingly difficult to resist the urge to swat at them when they keep flying so close to her head. She _swears_ she can feel them in her hair, and there’s a chill that keeps running down her spine at the very though of them.

She’s not _afraid_ of bugs, mind you. She just doesn’t like the way they feel when they touch her. All—fluttery and creepy-crawly. Dexion could have told her they’d fly this close to her face.

“Oh!” Serana exclaims suddenly, tugging her to a sudden stop. Eres turns, towards where she feels the pull, but she can only see a glimpse of Serana beyond the flash of moth’s wings in front of her eyes. “I think that must be enough of them—it’s hard to even look at you now.”

Eres hopes Serana doesn’t see the grimace on her face, but she allows the woman to tug her carefully back down the incline, toward the shallow pools and the skylight shining down on it.

At last, Eres feels the cool touch of water beneath her feet, pooling around her ankles. She splashes uncertainly towards the center, led by Serana, and then stands there awkwardly when the woman releases her, holding her hands out.

Serana deposits a scroll into her hand—thinner and lighter than she’d thought it’d be. Huh. The scrolls themselves must not be that big—perhaps it’s just the casing that’s so heavy.

Eres pulls the scroll to her, until she feels she could actually see it through the moths surrounding her, and thumbs at the edge of the parchment until she claps the scroll, one hand clasped around the roller, the other pinching the edge of the parchment between thumb and forefinger.

Now she sort of wishes she’d taken a moment to consciously remember what the glade looked like, before she’d gone to collect the moths. If she went blind now, her last memory of seeing would be the damn moths flying in front of her face.

_Here goes nothing._

“One after the other,” she says to Serana, her voice sounding much steadier and more confident than she feels. “After I open this one, hand me the other.”

“I got you,” Serana promises. “Just hold your hand up when you’re ready for the next.”

Eres nods, steels herself, and pulls the scroll open in one quick jerk.

The low humming between her ears explodes into a thunderous, rumbling clap, and her vision goes white—and then a bright, burning blue and then the blue settles upon the white, shrinking into lines and shapes and diagrams and—weird, it kind of looks like Skyrim, if someone had made the sun about a thousand times brighter.

The thunderous rumble fades, seeming to drop somewhere behind her and far into the distance as the humming take its place again there, louder than before—or perhaps she’s simply more sensitive to the sound, more aware of it. Maybe she can hear it now, truly, as Dexion had said she would.

She raises her hands, the unbound scroll in her left, her right left open. The weight of the next scroll settles into her right hand at the same time that Serana takes the first from her.

Eres repeats the same motion as before, with little hesitation—she still can’t see past the blinding white-and-blue map of Skyrim laid over her eyes, but somehow she _knows_ where to look, how to see the scroll and what it has to show her.

The thunderous rumble returns, reverberating, bouncing around inside her skull. The images in front of her eyes flash and burn ever brighter, so much so that her eyes begin to water, that it feels painful to keep them open.

Just one more, she thinks to herself. One more, and I’ll have it.

Serana hands her the third.

Her eyes feel like she’s poured acid into them, but she opens the scroll anyways, feels the rumble of it, the burn of it against her sight, the roaring hum of it between her ears—and sways.

Hands, gripping her tightly, almost holding her upright—there’s a form in front of her, something dark and close but—she can’t see past the burning brightness.

“I-I know,” she rasps, and blinks. The burn in her eyes surges painfully, as if renewed by her attempt to calm it. “I know where the bow is.”

“Forget the bow—are you _alright_ , Eres? Eres!” Serana’s hands squeeze almost painfully tight around her arms, hard enough that Eres squeezes her eyes shut before she remembers that that makes it hurt _worse_ , and her knees buckle.

If someone were to ask her later, Eres could not have said what possessed her to do it. Perhaps it was just that burning in her eyes, driving her to do whatever it took to just _make it stop_ , perhaps it was that mystical magic of the moths themselves, and the glade around her.

Whatever it was, when Eres drops to her knees, she bends forward and throws herself face-first into the shallow pool, pressing her fingers against her eyes beneath the water as though she might put the fire out if she tries hard enough—

After a moment, she realizes just how silly she must look, and straightens, wiping the water from her face, from her eyes. Her face does feel cooler, but that might be just because the water is _freezing_ cold. Her knees and feet especially feel like they might go numb if she stays within the pool much longer.

“Eres.” Serana drops to her knees before her—Eres hears her knees hit the water, feels hands upon her shoulders and then at either side of her face, cupping at her cheeks. Her own cheeks are so chilled from the water that Serana’s hands feel _warm_ for once.

Eres rubs at her eyes once more for good measure, then slowly opens them.

The image of Serana in front of her is washed out, a strange reddish hue all over her like someone had draped a crimson curtain down over her eyes—but she can see. She can see her in front of her, watching her with something between concern and open fear.

“I’m fine,” she manages. She blinks, and sees the map burned into her eyelids—bright lines against the black, the scroll’s knowledge quite literally _burned_ into her retinas. She wonders if it may fade someday, or if she’ll be stuck seeing that map forever every time she closes her eyes. “I think the water must have—some kind of healing properties, or something.”

As if to demonstrate, Eres cups her hands in the water and brings more of it to her face, splashing it across closed eyes.

“You look ridiculous,” Serana protests, grabbing at her wrists.

Eres opens her eyes again, sniffing. Serana’s still reddish, but the tint around her is fading. Everything still looks a little foggy, like there’s a film over her eyes, but she can see, and it’s getting better.

“Maybe,” she admits. She moves as if to do it again, and instead splashes Serana with it, grinning when the woman splutters and jerks away from her. “At least I can see you.”

Serana stands with a huff, kicking a splash of water at her that falls just a bit short. She spins on her heel and marches out of the shallow pool to dress again, apparently quite done with her.

Eres stands a moment later, cursing when she finds the last scroll floating listlessly in the pool next to her. She hopes they’re not too fragile, ancient as they are. Think of what Dexion would say if he knew she’d dropped a damn Elder Scroll in the water.

Eres joins Serana at the poolside, pulling on her boots. “I know where the bow is,” she repeats.

“And?”

“And it’s actually not far from somewhere I’ve been before. The ruins I found Sorine at,” Serana’s brow furrows, and Eres realizes Serana probably doesn’t know that part, even if she’s certainly met the woman before. “It’s out west, following the Karth river. If we just track the river west we’ll eventually come upon what looks like Dwarven ruins—something like Alftand, except it’s rubble aboveground. The map the scrolls showed me, it points to a cave near there, in the same area. It shouldn’t take us long to reach it.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Serana says. “I can’t believe we’re finally in the home stretch. We go get this stupid bow, and then we can finally put an end to my father.”

Eres nods, but, “About that. Are you okay with it? We may have to kill him.”

“ _May_?” Serana repeats, scoffing. “I figured that’s what we’ve been heading toward this whole time. I’ve…spent a lot of time, thinking about it. Making my peace with it.” She shrugs. “It can’t be helped. My father can’t be saved.”

“Still,” Eres frowns. “Even if you didn’t get along, he’s still your father.” Serana raises a brow. “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean—even with all the problems my father and I had, even as much as I hated him at times, I was still sad when he died.” She’d still cried. And then she’d been mad at herself for crying, because she hadn’t felt like she deserved to. It had taken her weeks to come to terms with her conflicted feelings about him. “You can hate someone and love them at the same time.”

Serana sighs. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll deal with that when I get there. For now, I’ve got it under control. You don’t have to worry about me, though I do appreciate you asking me.”

“Of course.” That should hardly have needed saying. “If you don’t feel like you can do it, though—”

“Don’t be stupid.” Serana cuts in, not even letting her finish. “As if I’d let you face down my father by yourself.”

“There is the Dawnguard,” Eres argues, but Serana glares at her.

“As I said,” she repeats, “I’m not letting you face him alone.” Eres raises a brow at her. “Most of your precious _Dawnguard_ still isn’t too fond of me—sorry if I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. I certainly wouldn’t trust them to watch your back instead of me.”

“Noted,” Eres tucks the wet scroll back into its case. When Serana looks at her, she ducks her head sheepishly. “I dropped it.”

“Clearly. Remind me not to trust you with any other priceless artifacts.”

“I’ve done pretty well with you, haven’t I?”

Serana blinks. Eres can actually _see_ the comment processing her mind, the wheels turning—she might have laughed if she didn’t think Serana might hit her for it.

Vampires, having no circulating blood of their own, could not blush—the bastards—but Serana did sputter something that _might_ have been a rebuttal, had Eres been able to understand it.

“What was that?” Eres prods, grinning.

Serana’s face morphs into a scowl. She reaches out with a too-quick hand, snatches the scroll from Eres’ hand, and spins to march pointedly up the hill, muttering darkly under her breath as she goes.

Serana’s probably still winning this game by quite a strong lead, but frankly, Eres is just happy to have scored a point. _Finally_. Maybe Serana would think twice about messing with her from now on. (As if. Even Eres doesn’t quite believe that one.)


	13. Touching the Sky

ACT III  
CHAPTER XIII  
TOUCHING THE SKY

It makes Eres nervous that they’ve not seen head or tail of Harkon’s minions in days. When they’d first started their journey, shortly after Serana had shown up at the Dawnguard’s fortress, Eres had almost gotten accustomed to seeing a telltale flicker in the corner of her vision just before Harkon’s lackeys would attempt to ambush them on the road. They’d spent as much time harrowing the two of them as they had throwing themselves at the fort’s defenses, for all the good it did them.

Eres is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she can’t help but feel unsettled as they make the approach to the cave which supposedly houses Auriel’s Bow—why had the attacks stopped, all of a sudden?

Was it possible that Harkon had found another way to decipher the prophecy without the scrolls, and he’d already found Auriel’s Bow? When they came out the other end of this cave, would they emerge to find the sun had gone dark? He would need to find Valerica for that, she supposes, but there’s a paranoia in the back of her mind that tells her it’s not entirely impossible.

He could have found Valerica’s lab. She and Serana had, so how hard could it be, if he bothered to look right under his nose? The Soul Cairn had required a daughter of Coldharbour’s blood to open it, but who was to say Harkon couldn’t find another way? Certainly, a coven of vampires might have more than one masterful necromancer.

Eres’ growing paranoia is mollified only by the quiet stillness of Dawnbreaker upon her back. If there were vampires nearby, Meridia certainly wouldn’t be silent about it. It’s perhaps the only thing that keeps her from drawing her blade as they enter the cave, half expecting Harkon’s men to be lying in wait for them.

Instead, she finds nothing but a large crevice with a weak-looking rope bridge flung across it, the rushing water of a gulch roaring beneath it.

Eres crosses that bridge, with some trepidation, Serana at her heels, but finds nothing of note on the other side. Just rocks, and the walls—no secret entrances, no cleverly hidden tunnels or crevices, no way to proceed.

“You sure you didn’t read that map wrong?” Serana asks, dubious. When Eres turns to face her, the woman is looking back at her, hands braced on her hips with a thoroughly unconvinced look upon her face. “There’s nothing here.”

“Maybe we have the wrong cave.” Eres frowns even as she says it—she’d been _certain_ this was the one, but maybe she’d been wrong. “There’s got to be dozens in these mountains.”

Serana sighs, glancing at the rickety bridge swaying behind them. “Back across, then, I guess.”

Eres eyes that same bridge with distaste, not fond of the way it swung when she walked on it. But while Serana might have been able to make a running jump across that gulley, she could not.

With a sigh, Eres starts across again, holding onto the rope at one side for balance—whoever had thought to only tie a rope on one side of that bridge, she’d like to have a chat with.

The bridge swings beneath her, groaning beneath her weight. She takes the trip slowly, as she did the first time, knowing it to be unstable, but her caution does little to save her when she hears something _snap_ , and the bridge drops out from beneath her feet in an instant.

The rope rips at her hands as she plunges down into the swirling water with only enough warning to hold her breath and squeeze her eyes shut—cold water slams up into her nostrils, making her sputter as she surfaces, but she has hardly enough time to breathe before she’s swept beneath the surface again, the current _yanking_ her down, pushing her forward—

Eres can swim. She’s not spent an incredible amount of her life swimming, but she certainly knows _how_ , in a practical ‘I know how _not_ to drown’ kind of way.

But knowing how to swim in a calm lake or quarry is a lot different from trying to swim in rushing rapids, where it’s all she can do just to bring her head above water long enough to breathe every so often.

It seems like hours by the time she feels a sudden weightlessness around her body, a certain dryness—and then the feeling of falling through the air and splashing to a rest in a pool just a bit too shallow for such a drop. Her hip bangs against a rock, her arm smashes against the riverbed—creekbed?—and she tumbles end over end until she comes to a rest, at last, on the edge of the water, shallow enough that when she sits up, dizzy and drenched and thankful to be alive and breathing, the water barely even covers her legs.

And by the gods, it’s _cold_.

Eres hears a splash a moment later, looking up to see Serana land feet-first, _almost_ gracefully—until she stumbles, trips, and nearly careens headfirst into a stalagmite. She only just manages to catch herself on it, looking as dazed and as thoroughly frazzled as Eres feels.

Had Eres not felt like she might throw up, she might have laughed.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Serana breathes out at last, her voice echoing, reverberating against the cave walls—could it even be called a cave, at this point, wide as it was? “Fuck,” she repeats, when she sees Eres, but the muted panic on her face turns to something a bit less frantic. “Are you alright?”

“Been better,” Eres manages. She doesn’t try to stand. The water is freezing cold and she feels like she’s probably going to regret just sitting in it later, but she thinks she might actually be sick if she tries to stand just yet. “Not my favorite experience.”

“You’re telling _me_ ,” Serana mutters. She walks over, looking far steadier than someone should after the trip they’ve taken, and Eres hates her a little for it. “Can you stand?”

“Give me a minute. Head’s spinning,” Eres tries to wipe the water from her face, realizes her hands are wet, too, and sighs, giving up on that venture. “We’d better hope there’s another way out of here.”

“As fast as that water was going?” Serana asks. “There has to be.” She helps Eres up, near hauling her bodily to her feet, and doesn’t release her until she steadies. “You didn’t hit your head or anything, did you?”

Eres feels cool hands in her hair, as if to search for just that. She brushes them away, waving her off. “I’m fine. Some bruises, maybe.” Her hip still aches, but nothing feels broken. “Just feel like I got spun around in a tumbler.”

Serana chuckles for a second, then stops abruptly. “Sorry. If I hadn’t thought you might die, it would have been funny to watch you flailing around like that.”

“Thank you for your concern.” Eres rolls her eyes at her. “Don’t think I didn’t see you almost knock yourself out with that pillar.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Serana says huffily, sniffing. She might have made a convincing case, if Eres hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. “We should at least get out of this water. You’re going to freeze to death in here.”

As if on cue, Eres shivers. “Let’s find some place dry, then. Maybe we can find some driftwood in here and build a fire.”

“We can burn one of the scrolls if we get desperate.” Eres sends her an incredulous look, and Serana shrugs. “What? We’ve already read them.”

Eres considers taking them, if only to keep them safe from Serana’s total disregard for their importance, but her robes and armor and pack are heavy enough with water that the thought of willingly carrying something else is not appealing in the slightest.

Eres reaches down to at least attempt to wring some of the water out of robes, stepping onto the rocky floor near the water, and hears something splash. She looks up, just to find Serana looking at her in the same way.

“That wasn’t you?”

“No,” Serana murmurs, voice only barely above a whisper. “I was hoping it was you.”

Eres tenses, reaches for her bow—only to find it absent. With a swallowed curse, she closes her hand around Dawnbreaker instead, her cold fingers aching as she grips it tight, ready to draw it—as hears a familiar, harrowing screech. She groans.

_Spiders_. Of course it would be.

Wordlessly, Serana calls frost to her fingertips and turns to meet their guest as Eres reaches for the silver sword at her waist instead. Eres hates fighting these things up close—their venom _burns._

Compared to vampires and bandits, a couple of giant spiders are quick work, and between the two of them, they manage to clear out the beasts in a matter of minutes, as much as Eres doesn’t enjoy it.

Then, together, they set off walking down the cavern passage’s twisting tunnels and corridors. When Eres nearly trips over the body of a man, she’s a bit too thankful to find a bow to be sorry about it.

“Look at this stuff,” Serana murmurs, kicking over a small stool. “Who would want to camp all the way down here?”

Eres has no idea, but there’s firewood, and that’s all she can bring herself to care about for the moment. She makes quick work of throwing it onto the ashes of a long-since extinguished campfire and setting it ablaze with a spark from her hands. She considers undressing to quicken the process of drying out her clothes, but she’s not keen on taking off her armor in an unsafe place. Instead, she crouches as close to it as she can manage without actually sitting in it.

Serana, though as drenched as Eres herself is, doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it—and of course she wouldn’t be, Eres thinks with not a small amount of annoyance; vampires aren’t affected by the cold like she is. Serana instead wanders the small campsite, lifting up tarps and furs and rooting through abandoned belongings as if she might find the answers to her questions among them.

“Whoever they were, looks like they bit off more than they could chew.”

Eres glances at the body of the man a few feet away, and his missing leg. “Was that a joke?”

Serana looks, then frowns. “I’m not _that_ bad,” she protests. “I didn’t even notice. Do spiders normally do that?”

“No,” Eres frowns thoughtfully. Spiders normally just took people whole, wrapped them in cocoons to eat them later. They might dismember a corpse eventually, but they usually wouldn’t just leave parts of it behind.

Given the way the leg looked like it’d been ripped off rather than bitten or cut, Eres would bet on trolls. She hasn’t heard them—or smelled them, for that matter, much as they tend to reek—but she wouldn’t be surprised if they’re lurking somewhere further inside the cave system. Whoever had decided to camp here probably hadn’t even known they’d been there. Trolls could be deceptively quiet when they wanted to be.

“Trolls, I imagine,” she says out loud, and points down the tunnel that descends downward. “Looks like someone was dragged.”

“Poor bastard,” Serana mutters. “Think they’re still here?”

“The people or the trolls?”

“The trolls, obviously. Pretty sure the trolls would’ve taken care of anyone else down here.”

“Probably,” Eres shrugs. “Hopefully they stay down there until I’m dry, though.” She fiddles with the bow she’d found near the man, testing its draw and heft. It’s not as supple as her own bow had been, but it’ll do. It would certainly be better to down a troll from a distance than to try fighting it up close.

“Well, they can’t have been dead _that_ long,” Serana says, and she finally comes over to sit besides Eres next to the fire. She shrugs off her cloak, laying it on the ground beside them. It’s actually a bit strange to see her without it. “He’s still got flesh on him.”

Eres makes a face, glancing at the man’s body. He did indeed, though it had pulled tight around his bones—almost mummified rather than rotting. She supposed she should be thankful that he didn’t smell as badly as he could have.

“I wonder what they were doing down here.”

Eres shrugs. “No idea. Whatever it was, it got them killed. I don’t understand why so many people in this country go looking for trouble they can’t handle.”

“The appeal of adventuring, I guess. Trying to eke out a better life for themselves.”

“Well, they’re idiots,” Eres mutters. “They should just stay at home and work regular jobs, like regular people.”

“Like you?”

Eres glances at her, crossing her arms upon her knees. “If I didn’t have Fellburg to take care of, I probably would have,” she admits. “I wanted to go to the College, once.”

“You, a scholar?”

Eres shrugs. “I liked making things—magical things,” she tells her. “Not anything like your mother’s gargoyles, of course, but useful things. Ways for magic to help regular people. Things to make life easier.” Like the things she’d set up at Fellburg, before Yosef and the others had arrived and she’d suddenly had far too much on her plate to bother. “I was alright at it, but the College would have helped me with more complex workings. I thought about going to the one in Cyrodiil, but.”

But. She’d heard how they were there. Most of the students there were Bretons and Altmer, naturally gifted in magics in a way that Eres could hardly dream of. She’d never have been able to get in there, with her modest ability.

“Dad died, and I came here not long after that.”

“Why did you go to the Vigilants, then, and not the College?”

“For one, the College doesn’t pay you.” At least not at first. Maybe if she’d graduated and become some kind of professor there, or if she’d conducted research—but as a student, no. She’d have had expenses on top of expenses, and no job to pay for them all. “And someone recruited me.”

“Oh? That easy to convince you?”

“I was a little desperate at the time,” Eres admits. “I was never very religious, but I’d been taking on odd jobs here and there and didn’t have a steady income. He made it sound like a good idea at the time.”

“At the time?” Serana asks. “Do you—” She frowns, brow furrowing. “Do you regret becoming a Vigilant?”

“Sometimes.” Eres looks away from her, into the fire. If she stares hard enough, she can almost see the visage of Molag Bal’s dragon form through the flames, back at the altar beneath the Beacon. “It hasn’t been all that great for me.”

“Why don’t you just quit, then? If you don’t like it?”

“I have responsibilities, now.” Eres tosses a twig into the fire, watches it burn. It feels like a metaphor, somehow, though she’s not sure for what. “There was—an incident. A lot of Vigilants died, including the old Keeper. They needed someone to take over for him at the Temple.”

“And that someone just had to be you?” Serana asks, sounding unconvinced. “You didn’t even want the job, why not hand it off to someone else?”

Eres sighs, tiredly. “There _was_ no one else.” As if she could have left all of that to Gwyneth. “By that time, I felt—responsible, I guess. It was just something I had to do.”

Serana frowns at her. “And you joined the Dawnguard after that, but you’re still a Vigilant.”

“That’s about it,” Eres confirms. “I told you, didn’t I? I was investigating something in Windhelm at the time, something connected to vampires. With Dawnguard rising up at the same time, it seemed related.”

“Well, is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Eres says, and that’s the truth of it. “I guess I won’t know until we’re done.”

For a moment, Serana is quiet beside her, deep in thought. “What will you do?” She asks at last, minutes later. “When all this is over?”

“Go back to Windhelm,” Eres answers honestly. “I have to finish what I started there, of course.” She shrugs. “With any luck, taking down Harkon will take care of whatever was happening there, too.”

“And then?”

“Back to the Vigilants, I suppose. Maybe spend a couple months back home, if I can manage it.” Could she afford to take another break so quickly, after being absent for so long? How were the Vigilants even doing without her for all this time? She hadn’t heard anything since the last time Gwyneth had sent a letter to the fort, and that had been months ago. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Serana says softly. “Bring my mother back to Skyrim, maybe. After that,” she shrugs helplessly. “I’ve got no idea. Maybe I’ll go to the College. Mirabelle didn’t seem too bothered by me—maybe she’d let me study there a while. I always did want to go there, back before—well, you know.”

Eres considers that, and finds the image of Serana in mage robes, poring over bookshelves day to day, makes complete sense. She can picture her there, spending years if not decades just learning everything she can get her hands on. Eres might have done the same, in a different life.

“You’d make a good student,” Eres offers.

Serana turns to look at her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Are you being sarcastic?”

Eres smiles at her. “No, I meant that. I can certainly make fun of you if you’d like, though.”

Serana shoves her, a bit too roughly, so that she nearly falls right over onto the dead man’s body. “ _Hey_ ,” she protests, straightening.

“Hey, yourself.”

Eres naps for several hours—she’s not quite sure how long. She asks when she wakes, but Serana merely shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. However long it had been, it was long enough that Eres’ clothes are mostly dry, and the fire has burned down to merely embers.

“We should get going,” Eres says, standing. She stretches, hearing several joints pop satisfactorily.

“Right behind you.”

They continue through the cavernous tunnels, until it opens up yet again into another wide chamber, the river from earlier having drizzled down to merely a shallow creek amongst the rocks. In the distance, Eres hears trolls from somewhere across the wide cave, bellowing and growling as trolls do.

“Don’t think they’ve noticed us,” Serana says, and Eres nods.

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

The two of them hug the walls of the opposite end of the cave, following the direction of the small stream as it flows through the cavern. Wherever the water is going, Eres figures, there must be an exit.

Eres turns a corner, and comes to an abrupt halt, so suddenly that Serana quite literally walks right into her.

“What the hell, Eres— _oh_.”

Eres nods. “You see him, too, right?”

“Unless we’re both crazy, yes.” Serana says. “What the hell is he doing down here?”

“Maybe he’s got the bow?” Eres ask, shrugging. Serana sends her a deadpan look at that, and she shrugs. “You never know.”

“One way to find out,” Serana mutters, and moves forward to approach him. Eres follows behind, close at her heels.

He turns to face them, seeming strangely unsurprised by their appearance.

“Come forward,” he calls to them, in a low, soothing voice. He doesn’t smile, but he seems friendly enough all the same. “You have nothing to fear here.”

Eres eyes his fine plate armor, the sword sheathed at his waist, and she’s not quite certain of that. She rests a hand on the hilt of her own sword, just in case.

“What _is_ that?” Serana asks at her shoulder, a hand hovering somewhere near Eres’ elbow as if to tug her away. “I can feel some kind of power coming from it…”

Eres looks—looks at the strange pedestal the man stands in front of, topped with a bronze sculpture of something that looks suspiciously like the sun. She can swear it’s _glowing_ , and it looks strangely familiar. Where has she seen that symbol before?

“I am Knight-Paladin Gelebor,” he greets them, once he no longer has to raise his voice for his words to reach them. “Welcome to the Great Chantry of Auri-El.”

_Auriel_ , that was it—the Bosmeri woman who’d cared for her as a child had showed her some of their deities once. Auriel, Eres remembered, was the god of the sun. _Auriel’s Bow_ , she’d known had something to do with it, but she’d forgotten the symbol associated with him. Shrines to the Elven gods weren’t exactly common in Cyrodiil.

“This whole cave is a temple to Auriel?” She asks, a little incredulous. Why the hell would they build a temple like this in a place so remote? Who would even bother to come here?

“Auriel, Auri-El, Alkosh, Akatosh,” the man recites, “So many different names for the sovereign of the snow elves.”

Eres’ brows pull sharply together. “Snow elves?” She asks, looking more closely at him—at his pale skin, the pointed ears, the somewhat too-long lankiness of his limbs. It’s hard to reconcile his image with the hunched over, barely-sentient beings that the words call to her mind. “You’re a Falmer?”

The man’s mouth twists with distaste, his eyes sharpening. “I prefer the term _snow elf_ ,” he says, almost haughtily. “The word ‘Falmer’ tends to have…rather negative connotations, to most travelers.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Eres hears Serana mutter under her breath. His eyes flick towards her briefly, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“Those twisted creatures you call Falmer,” he continues, looking back at Eres, “I call the Betrayed.”

Okay—whatever _that_ meant. “I imagine you know why we’re here, then?” She asks, because she can’t think of another reason why this man would be tending to a shrine in the middle of nowhere, so tucked away in such a hard-to-find place, if it wasn’t for the sake of protecting something important.

Something like Auriel’s Bow.

“Of course,” Gelebor says, confirming her thoughts. “You’re here for Auriel’s Bow. Why else would you be here?” He crosses his arms over his chest, frowning. “I can help you get it— _but_ ,” he says, and Eres holds back a sigh, “I first must ask you for your assistance.”

Of course there would be a catch. There always is.

“What type of ‘assistance’?” She asks, almost dreading the answer.

Gelebor takes a breath. “I need you to kill Arch-Curate Vyrthur.” She stares at him, uncomprehendingly—is that name supposed to mean something to her? “My brother.”

Eres blinks. “Your brother?” She asks. “Why do you need me to kill your brother?”

“Whatever kinship he and I once had is gone,” the elf says stiffly. “I don’t understand what he has become – but he is no longer the man I once knew. Whatever it is that he is now, that man is no longer who I would consider my brother.”

“What happened to him?” Serana asks.

“It was the Betrayed,” Gelebor says, spitting out the word so harshly that it sounds almost like a curse. “They must have done something to him. I can think of no other cause. I just don’t understand why Auri-El would allow it to happen.”

Eres has never really understood the logic of relying on the gods to keep bad things from happening to people, but maybe she’s just jaded. Even after Stendarr and Meridia had lended her their power against Molag Bal, she’d never come to just _expect_ them to interfere in things just because they could. She hardly thinks they care that much about individual mortals.

“What exactly did the Betrayed do?”

Gelebor’s frown deepens ever further. “They swept into the Chantry and killed everyone they could manage.”

Eres frowns. “You couldn’t stop them?”

Gelebor’s shoulders sink, just the slightest. “The Chantry was a place of _peaceful_ worship. I led a small group of paladins, but our numbers were too few to fight against them all. They overwhelmed us in sheer numbers. The Betrayed slaughtered everyone and stormed into the Inner Sanctum—where I believe they corrupted Vyrthur.”

“You believe?” Serana asks, hands on her hips. “How can you even be sure he’s alive if you haven’t seen him?”

“Oh, I have seen him,” Gelebor says. “He is very much alive.” His mouth twists. “But something is wrong. He never looks as though he is in pain or under duress, never seems to be affected by what has happened… He merely stands and watches, as though waiting.”

“Have you at least tried getting into the Inner Sanctum yourself?” Eres asks. The way Gelebor makes it sound, this must have happened some time ago—surely he’d at least attempted to do it himself?

“No.” Gelebor shakes his head firmly. “Leaving the wayshrines unprotected would be violating my sacred duty as paladin. And an assault on the Betrayed within the Sanctum would only end in my death.”

“But you expect _us_ to go in there,” Serana huffs. “If you don’t think _you’d_ survive, why exactly would either of us agree to go in there?”

“Simple,” Gelebor smiles tightly, his eyes cold. “I have something you need. The Bow. You cannot get it without reaching the Inner Sanctum. _Vyrthur_ has it.”

Well, fuck.

Eres lets out a long, tired sigh.

“I guess we have no choice then. What are these Wayshrines you spoke of?”

“Allow me to show you,” Gelebor says, and turns. He walks several steps away, into the water, near the strange, domed structure with another sculpture of Auriel’s symbol mounted at its peak. He raises his hand as if to call something from the depths, and the ground _trembles_.

From beneath the earth, the dome begins to rise until pillars emerge from below, raising the structure until it is well over ten feet tall, the top of Auriel’s symbol nearly scraping against the ceiling of the cavern.

The dome sits atop four equidistant archways, one on each side, and at its center is a small basin not unlike that which one might use to wash their hands, filled with crisp, pristine water.

Serana whistles low. “So this is snow elf magic,” she breathes, walking toward it without reserve to press her hands against the stone surface, brushing her palm against it almost reverently. “Incredible.”

“This structure is known as a Wayshrine,” Gelebor tells them. He watches Serana as she inspects it, looking almost amused. “It served as a means of meditation and transport, back when the Chantry was a place of enlightenment. Prelates of these shrines were charged with teaching the mantras of Auri-El to our Initiates.”

“What’s that basin in the center signify?” Serana asks, though she wisely does not approach it herself. She stands just beneath one of the archways, peering at it from a distance.

“Once the Initiate completed his mantras, he’d dip a ceremonial ewer in the basin at the wayshrine’s center, and proceed to the next.”

Serana quirks a brow, looking suddenly unimpressed. “So these Initiates just had to lug around a heavy pitcher of water. Marvelous,” she drawls. “Just how long would they have to do that?”

“Once the Initiate’s enlightenment was complete, he would bring the ewer to the Chantry’s Inner Sanctum,” Gelebor continues. “Pouring the contents of the ewer into the sacred basin of the Sanctum would allow him to enter for an audience with the Arch-Curate himself.”

“All that just to end up dumping it out?” Serana shakes her head. “Makes no sense to me.”

“I don’t suppose we could just use a pitcher of regular water once we get there,” Eres adds, though she gets the feeling she knows the answer. When Gelebor favors her with a deadpan expression, she sighs. “Worth a shot.”

“It’s _symbolic_ ,” Gelebor huffs, turning his nose up to the both of them. “I don’t expect the likes of you to understand.”

“The likes of _us_ , huh?” Serana asks, eyeing him. “Let’s get this straight—we have to do all of that nonsense just to get into the temple, so we can kill your brother and claim Auriel’s Bow?”

“I know how it all sounds. If there was another way, I’d have done it long ago myself. The only way to get to my brother is by following in the Initiate’s footsteps and traveling from wayshrine to wayshrine as they did. The first lay here, at the end of Darkfall Passage, a cavern that represents the _absence_ of enlightenment.”

“These caves have to be massive, then.” Eres can’t quite wrap her head around it, even after having seen Blackreach. Just how many massive cave systems exist under Skyrim? How did the earth just not collapse in on itself?

“Caves?” Gelebor chuckles. “Oh, no. The Chantry encompasses more than just a few caves, as you will soon discover. Before I send you on your way, however,” he crosses past the shrine, towards the rocky banks on the left that served as a shore. “You will need the Initiate’s Ewer.”

From one of the hand-crafted wood tables that had been set up at his apparent campsite, he produced a singular, ceremonial pitcher carved of what appeared to be white stone, or perhaps sculpted from a fine, rich clay. When he hands it to Eres, depositing it into her arms, she’s surprised by the weight of it. It’s _heavy_ , even empty as it is.

“I need to fill this at each wayshrine?” She asks, feeling the strain on her arms already. Serana might end up having to carry this thing before long, at this rate.

“Once you’ve located a wayshrine, there will be a spectral Prelate tending to it,” Gelebor informs her. “They will allow you to draw the waters from the shrine’s basin as though you have been enlightened. Then, the way to the next Wayshrine shall open for you.”

Eres nods. Without her needing to ask, Serana comes to her and pulls the ewer from her hands, holding it as casually in her arms as though it weighed little more than a bag of flour.

“This may be the last time we are able to converse,” Gelebor says at last. “If you’ve any questions before you leave, I suggest you ask them now. There is no turning back once you have stepped foot on the path of enlightenment.”

That sounded a bit too dramatic for Eres’ taste, but she supposed a man like Gelebor _would_ be dramatic. Just how long had he been waiting down here for someone to come looking for Auriel’s Bow? It had to have been—what, centuries? For him to be snow elf, and not Falmer. Her history might be a little rusty, but she’s certain the Falmer—or the _Betrayed_ , as Gelebor would call them—have been around for quite some time.

“I think we’ve got the gist of it,” Eres says, and Serana shrugs carelessly next to her. “Find the wayshrine, fill the ewer, pour it into the receptacle at the Chantry—then fight your brother and get the bow.”

“Essentially,” Gelebor says, though the quirk of his brow looks as though he’s not quite certain whether or not they’ll be successful. “Very well then. I wish you a safe journey. May Auri-El be with you.”

Gelebor sweeps a long arm behind him, towards the basin. “Begin here,” he instructs them plainly.

Serana, as instructed, dips the ewer into the basin to fill it, then straightens. Eres hears a strange chiming, almost ringing sound—and then one of the open arches begins to _shimmer_.

“The Way is open,” Gelebor says, gesturing to it. “Just as it has at this Wayshrine, the Way to the next will open once you have drawn its water. Only once you have collected the last will you reach the Chantry.”

“Got it.” Serana then glances at Eres, catching her eyes. “Ready?”

“Ready as ever,” Eres confirms. “We’ll be off, then.”

Gelebor nods. “Be careful,” he warns them. “The Path may be dangerous—the Betrayed still make their home near the Chantry.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Serana nods her head towards Eres, beckoning her to go first. “After you.”

Eres isn’t sure what to expect. She takes a steadying breath, and steps into the shimmering void stretched across the arch—and into complete and utter darkness.


	14. Darkfall Passage

ACT III  
CHAPTER XIV  
DARKFALL PASSAGE

“That,” Serana starts, when they cross the threshold of the archway portal, “actually wasn’t as unpleasant as I thought it was gonna be. I actually feel a little warmer, now.” She rubs her hands together, as if she might make the feeling last longer.

Eres can’t say she relates—it had been cold to her, like stepping through a sheet of icy water, and her brain still aches a bit from the vision of seeing the cavern on the other side of the archway when she stepped into it, and then a completely _different_ cavern once she crossed it. It feels like her brain hasn’t quite caught up with reality yet, like it can’t quite wrap itself around the aspect of reality warping around itself.

The portal she’d taken to get to Altano had been like that, in a way, but she’d had enough to worry about at the time that a little headache had never really registered in the moment.

She peers over her shoulder, looking back through the open archway—all that remains of where they came from is an dark shimmering across its opening, what lies beyond it bathed in shadow. It looks as though whatever lies on the other side shimmers and wavers and distorts as she looks through it, its image as uncertain as her own understanding of it.

As vaguely unsettling as the feeling is, she can’t deny its uses. Her eyes search along the stone of the archway, of the dome surrounding it—no matter where she looks, she can’t see anything that might suggest some kind of enchantment. No glimmer of runic engravings beneath the surface, no soft glow of soulgems nestled deep within. Nothing that would, to her understanding, power such a thing.

If only she could study it. It might take her years, maybe decades, to figure out a way to recreate the wayshrines for such travel methods back aboveground, but imagine the _uses_ of such a thing. If she could travel from Fort Dawnguard to Fellburg to the Temple and back in an instant, she wouldn’t have to choose which to lay her focus upon like she has to now.

“What a strange place,” Serana murmurs, from a bit further away than Eres is comfortable with. When she looks, the woman has moved almost halfway down the cave tunnel they’d arrived in, crouching in ankle deep water and peering curiously into some kind of cylindrical plant-like object attached to the walls.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eres moves to her, a little worried for her sanity.

“They glow,” Serana looks up at her, pointing at the plant—there’s an almost child-like awe on her face.

“The mushrooms?” Eres wonders, because there are quite a few of them. “We’ve seen those before.”

“Not _those_ ,” Serana huffs, and stands. She points sharply down the tunnel, where a host of bright pinkish-flowers (fungi? She’s not sure) illuminate the walls nearby with soft, warm light. “Those.”

Eres looks back at the comparatively dark, petal-less blooms on the wall in front of them. “Did you pick them?”

“No, they moved when I got close.” Eres raises her brows, and Serana says, “Really. Try it.” She tugs her along, towards the next set of them.

They make it within five feet before Eres sees the bright pink-petaled flowers quite literally _duck_ within their cylindral roots, as if yanked from within. When she peers inside, even the closed bloom that has been pulled deep inside of it has gone a dark, dull grey.

Eres straightens, looking back at the area they’d left, and the first set of them. That part of the tunnel is still dark, the bloom of the glowing flower still pulled within and closed, its soft light nowhere to be seen.

“We can use them to navigate.” Eres hopes they can, anyways. “I don’t know how long they’ll hide from us, necessarily, but,” she shrugs. “We can assume the dark paths are places we’ve already been.”

“You’re smart sometimes, you know that?” Serana says this like she’s only just realizing it, and Eres isn’t sure whether she should feel complimented or insulted.

“Thank you?” Eres ignores the little smile Serana sends her—she’d done it on purpose, the asshole—and moves forward, down the winding tunnels of the cavern system ahead of them. Serana follows at her heels, a hand raised with frost already gathering around her fingertips.

“Expecting trouble?” Eres asks, needlessly—she has her own sword out, but the all-encompassing silence of the cavern, broken only by the sound of water dripping from the walls or lapping at the rocks underfoot, makes her nervous. She doesn’t like silence. Silence usually means something is lying in wait for them.

“You aren’t?”

She is, and so she’s not surprised at all to see the all too familiar sight of the luminous, conical structure of chaurus egg sacs dotting the dark corners of the tunnels they travel. She’s even less surprised to find the larger cocoons, looming ominously in places they must pass.

She’s found that fire works well against those, if she could manage to get the jump on them, and tells as much to Serana, whose battle magic comes so much more naturally than her own, as easily as breathing.

Serana answers her by throwing a bolt of lightning at the cocoon nearest them. It bursts with a screeching tittering sound, long dark limbs covered with muck flailing and writhing about as the grown chaurus hunter within it fights against the electricity ravaging its body.

Serana pauses, then strikes it once more for good measure.

The stench of fried chaurus is not one that Eres is very fond of, but it’s better than a face full of poison. She’s fought chaurus before, more than once, and they always seem to have just the most _inconvenient_ aim.

“How about you go first?” Eres offers, waving in front of her. Serana gives her what might be the most thoroughly unimpressed look she’s sent her way since they met, but the woman does move ahead, brandishing lightning in one hand and ice in the other.

“Coward,” Serana mutters, without much bite.

Eres shrugs behind her, unconcerned. Serana’s reflexes are a lot faster than her own, and she’d rather not be covered in chaurus sputum if she can help it. At least Serana could _choose_ not to smell it, as she so often reminded her.

The chaurus, thankfully, are almost entirely cocooned—Eres knows little to nothing about how chaurus reproduce or their life cycles, but she’s certainly glad that all the ones they come across are those that Serana can kill before they realize they’re there.

Twice, they wander down tunnels that merely wrap back around to where they started. The third time they find themselves marching down a tunnel only to reappear in a tunnel whose bright blooms have already darkened, Eres swears.

“How the fuck are we supposed to find this damn wayshrine? He could have given us a map.”

“Maybe it’s part of the _enlightenment_ ,” Serana says, with a roll of her eyes. “Not only do we have to carry a pitcher of water, we also have to wander around in circles until one of us goes mad.”

As if to illustrate that end, the ewer clacks meaningfully against the scrolls upon Serana’s back—they’d managed to find a way to tie it there, knowing she’d need her hands free, but Eres still isn’t wholly convinced it won’t fall. It’s not the most stable jerry-rigging she’s ever seen.

Deeper and deeper within the caverns they go, with Eres feeling more and more like they’re wandering in circles. She’s almost glad to see the signs of Falmer dotting the tunnels as they continue—it’s something _new_ , and that means they’re getting somewhere.

She’s also glad to fight something that doesn’t spit at her, though Serana wastes no time in making fun of her aim with the pilfered bow.

“The balance is off,” she mutters, when Serana laughs at a shot that goes wide. She adjusts, fires again, and drops the approaching Falmer with an arrow dead-center in the forehead.

“Sure, it is.” Serana ducks a savage swing with a mean-looking axe, calls ice to her fingers, and impales the thing with it. She’s already targeting the next before it even hits the floor. “Just how many of these bastards _are there_?”

“I’m guessing these are those _Betrayed_ he was talking about.” Eres moves left, trusting Serana to hold her own—she can see more coming across a wide trench at the far end of the camp. If she can just get her aim right, she can drop them before they ever manage to join the fray. Last thing they need is to be overwhelmed by them, dumb as they might be.

It’s nice.

Not the fighting, she could do without that. Certainly not the Falmer—they smell, their voices sound like nails grating on a slate, their growls and howls make her wish she could turn her ears off at times, and they never just appear one by one, but in groups, two or three at a time seeming to just wander out of dark corners and hideaways where Eres hadn’t noticed them. Even her dark vision isn’t as good as it could be, not with so many glow-bright plants peppered around, keeping her sight from adjusting to the dim lighting.

None of _that_ was nice. 

But having someone with her, at her side, fighting with her, and not having to worry if they could hold their own without her breathing down their neck— _that_ was the nice part. She liked that she didn’t have to worry too much about Serana; liked the easy confidence she had in Serana’s ability to stay alive.

Or, sort of alive. Whatever.

A crackle of energy flies past her head, and Eres can feel the hairs near her ear lifting, tickling against her skin. The Falmer to her left drops its weapon, seizes violently in place, and drops to the ground.

“Turns out their armor is pretty conductive,” Serana says, appearing next to her, and she lets out a little laugh when she looks at Eres. Whether it’s her own joke or Eres’ static-lively hair she’s laughing at, Eres can’t quite tell. But the woman’s _grinning_ , like it’s a game. Like she’s having fun.

Knowing Serana, she probably is—she seems to find a thrill in fighting, in letting go of that part of her that’s not quite human anymore, but in a way that’s productive. In a way that’s _good_.

Eres releases her bow, reaching up to smooth down her hair. “Try not to throw lightning so close to me next time.”

“You know I wouldn’t hit you.”

“On purpose,” Eres replies. She steps over the corpses of the Falmer around them, moving cautiously through the little Falmer campsite they’d stumbled upon. That trench across the room has a bridge across it, a waterfall flowing down underneath it, but she’d seen Falmer coming through from the other side when the battle had begun. She knows there’s a path back there, and she hopes it leads _out_.

“Or on accident,” Serana argues. “I hope you know I’m better than that.”

It feels like there’s a double meaning to that statement. Better than what, exactly? Better a mage than that, or better a person? Eres knows both to be true. Doesn’t mean she can’t complain when Serana fires her spells off a little too close for comfort. She’s not forgotten the time she almost got bowled over by an icicle as big as she is.

Eres sends Serana a face like she’s not sure if she agrees though, and laughs when Serana glares at her.

“These Falmer are…weird.” Serana says after a moment. “Do you see that—that thing they’ve made in the center there?”

Eres looks, to one of the pens they’ve seen that, unfortunately, normally house chaurus—how the Falmer manage to train them, she’s no idea. Or they might simply be breeding them, fuck if she knows. It’s not like she can ask.

But instead of chaurus, in the center of this pen is some kind of crafted sculpture, on a raised platform. The Falmer have placed blocks of ice around the bottom of it, as if to weigh the thing down, and—it looks a lot like a person. Or a skeleton of a person, just suspended there in the center of the pen like some sort of religious idol.

“Do—Do Falmers have a religion?” Serana asks, haltingly. The spell in her right hand dims, as if affected by her sudden doubt—doubt towards whether or not the Falmer they’ve slaughtered have been more advanced and self aware than they’d seemed.

“I…don’t know,” Eres admits. From the look of that thing, it certainly _looked_ ceremonial—the way they’d decorated it, raised it up off the ground, the ice they’d used to keep it in place—it all seemed too purposeful and reverent to simply be some kind of effigy or, hell, Falmer art installation, whatever the fuck.

She’d rather not think about it.

The combination of seeing something like this, and meeting an actual snow elf not even a few hours prior, doesn’t sit comfortably with her.

“Let’s just hurry up and get out of here.”

They leave the religious idol-like sculpture behind, and only walk a short distance further before arriving at a deadend with another skeleton there, only not a Revered one. An elven swords rests nearby, rusted and dulled by age.

“Looks like some kind of trap here,” Serana notes, pointing towards the two pulleys attached to the side wall. “That wall definitely moves. Be careful—I’m sure they’re here for a reason.”

“But for what?” Eres wonders, and she’s not sure she wants to know the answer. “What were they trying to keep out?”

“Well,” Serana sighs, hands on her hips. “Only one way to find out.” Eres sends her a look, and Serana makes a face. “It’s our only option. It’s a dead end otherwise.”

It is, but that doesn’t mean Eres has to like it.

“Choose one, then.” Serana reaches out with more confidence than Eres would have, and tugs at one of the pulleys. When the wall starts to shift, sinking into the floor, Eres says, “I wonder what the other one does—”

Right before she hears a roar.

“Oh, fuc—”

Her bow is out before she even registers what it is she’s aiming at—all she knows is that it’s something large, and black, and _angry_ , and Serana is _right there_ in its reach. She looses four arrows in quick succession, backing further into the hallway, and her fourth makes the thing rear on its hind legs, a screaming, pained roar rising to echo within the caverns.

Serana reaches in with her dagger at that very moment, and carves it from chest to stomach.

The sound of its entrails dropping to the floor, followed shortly by the loud _thwump_ of its body collapsing on top, is not one of Eres’ favorite sounds.

“Well,” Serana says, when she straightens. Her entire right arm is drenched with the black sabrecat’s blood, and she wipes her hand almost too-casually on her pants. “Guess we found what they were trying to keep out.”

Eres, though, isn’t so flippant.

“I’ve never seen a sabrecat like this before.” She moves closer, frowning, crouching near it—she swears the stripes on its fur are _glowing_. She touches the striped fur with her hands, almost expecting paint to come off on her fingertips. Her hand comes away clean.

“We _are_ pretty far removed from the rest of Skyrim,” Serana muses, though she looks a bit uncertain as well. “Perhaps there’s different species here.”

Weird. They couldn’t be _that_ far from Skyrim, could they?

But Eres follows alongside Serana as she steps past the strange sabrecat, and continues deeper into the cavern. The walls rise higher and higher above them, the ceiling impossibly high over their heads, and Eres can hear the sound of rushing water—water falling from above, into a pool she can’t yet see over the rise of the ground ahead of them.

Eres stops just a few feet from the edge, and stares.

Something like an oasis spreads out before them—waterfalls and an even greater variety of those strange, luminous plants they’d seen in the cave tunnels, greenery and the lake beneath the cliff they stand upon—and, Eres swears, the loping, bounding forms of oddly-colored deer, black furred with bright green stripes that zip and run through the darkness.

“Wow,” Serana breathes, coming to stand quite a bit closer to the edge than Eres dared to herself. “I’d have never seen anything like this back on the island.”

That was putting things lightly. Eres had lived in two countries and _still_ had never seen anything quite like this.

“It’s beautiful,” Serana says, and Eres nods. It is—for all she doesn’t trust its beauty. Beautiful things can be dangerous.

“Look,” Eres points, squinting out across the cavern, to the other side. On a rise, just on the other side, at about the same height they are, she can swear she sees something that looks a bit like the shape of a person, only glowing softly and half-transparent. “Do you think that’s the next wayshrine?”

Serana follows her point, and raises her brows. “Well, he did say they’d be spectral. Looks like a ghost to me.”

Eres follows the edge of that cliffrise with her eyes, down to the incline that leads to it, and the path that incline follows back to where they are. It’s not an especially long walk, but it may certainly be a dangerous one if there are any more of those sabrecats around.

“We should keep a look out for those cats,” she says, even as she starts walking.

As much as she hates to admit it, though, she’s getting tired. Serana might have endless stamina, but she doesn’t. Spending the last several hours on high alert, having only a couple hours of sleep up in the cave before they’d met Gelebor, the fall from the rope bridge and the near-drowning—she’s exhausted, and starting to feel it. They will have to rest soon, or she might just collapse.

Surreptitiously, when Serana isn’t looking, Eres slides one of the green vials from her belt, and downs it in one shot. The surge of energy within her will likely wear off in a few hours and just leave her more tired than she was before, but it would at least get her to the wayshrine, and possibly somewhere that might be safe beyond it.

They do see one more sabrecat on their way, lounging close to the wayshrine as if guarding it, but now that they’re on guard and expecting it, killing it isn’t too much of a hassle. There’s a part of Eres that aches to skin it, if only to take it back to Skyrim and bring it some place where it might be studied, or identified, at least, but they haven’t the time for such things.

Instead they move with purpose to the wayshrine itself, Serana already pulling the ewer from her back even before she reaches it.

The spectral prelate turns to face them, smiling at them with an unfocused gaze. The effect of that empty-eyed gaze from a ghostly figured upon Eres is distinctly discomfiting. It doesn’t quite seem _present_ , grounded in the moment, but merely a moment in time that continues to repeat on an endless loop, as though the prelate hasn’t realized they’re dead.

“Welcome, Initiate,” the prelate says, spreading his arms wide, “to the Wayshrine of Illumination.”

Eres exchanges a glance with Serana, realizing that Gelebor never actually told them what they should say.

“Yes,” she says, uncertainly, and the prelate seems satisfied enough with that answer alone.

“Behold Auriel’s gift, my child. May it light your path as you seek tranquility within the Inner Sanctum.” The Prelate turns away from them, raises the wayshrine open as Gelebor had done with the one before. Then he goes still, and does not move or speak again.

“…Right,” Eres moves past him, and Serana moves to dip the ewer in the basin, filling it with the water. Eres knows the ewer must be heavy by now. It had already been uncomfortably heavy before, but Serana still shrugs it back onto her back as though it weighs little more than one of the scrolls might.

“Where to now?” Serana asks.

Eres points, at the second archway that has changed from nothingness to _something_ beyond the shimmering. “I think that’s where we came from,” she points to the other shimmering arch, which looks familiarly dark and ominous. “This one’s new.”

“Oh,” Serana says, and blinks. She regards it curiously, looking not completely unpleased with the thought of it. “At least it’s warm,” she says, shrugging, and gestures for Eres to go ahead of her.

Eres still doesn’t think it’s that warm, actually, but vampires will be vampires. They’re a lot like cats—if vampires could bask in the sun for the warmth of it, Eres believes, they probably would. In fact, she can picture Serana doing just that all too easily.

She walks through the shimmering portal all the same, bracing herself for the wave of dizziness that strikes her as soon as she crosses the threshold.

The sight of her surroundings shifting before her eyes is not quite as disorienting when she knows it’s coming, but it’s still not her favorite experience.

On the bright side—Eres looks up, hearing the whistle of wind through the canyon. She sees a greyish-white sky above her, dreary, but it is a sky. They’ve made it through the caverns at last.

She steps out of the way when she hears Serana arriving behind her, the woman letting out a pleased-sounding sigh.

“If I could bottle that feeling,” Serana murmurs, stepping into line with her, “I could make a fortune.”

“Or you could invest in warmer clothes,” Eres says pointedly, glancing at her armor—and the things it does not cover.

Serana quirks a brow, and does not even bother to follow her gaze. She clearly knows exactly what Eres is talking about. “My clothes are warm enough, thank you,” Serana says, her voice all too coy in a way that doesn’t match the smirk that’s slowly curving at her lips. “It’s my skin that’s cold.”

There are a lot of things Eres could say to that. A lot of things she almost believes that Serana _expects_ her to say to that, and so she doesn’t give the woman the satisfaction. Instead she pulls her own cloak more tightly around her shoulders, as if to make a point of it, and she turns to walk up the hill to their next destination. She’s absolutely certain she hears a sigh of disappointment.

“Don’t you think we should stick to the path?” Serana asks, when Eres veers off course.

“There’s a dome up there.” Eres points.

They’d been following the path of what appeared to be ruins, the strewn remains of walls or buildings that looked suspiciously similar to the manner of architecture used to build the wayshrines themselves, figuring they could follow the path of decay and destruction and hopefully find more wayshrines on the way. The one Eres points to, however, is a path just to their right, a short walk away from the path they’ve been following.

“We can come back here once we stop there.”

Serana shrugs, and follows.

“This is the Wayshrine of Sight,” the Prelate says when they approach, and he raises the wayshrine as both Gelebor and the last Prelate they’d encountered had done. “May it speed your journey to the Inner Sanctum.”

Serana goes to collect the water, and Eres inspects the open archways—unfortunately, she does not see another that might teleport them closer to wherever the next wayshrine is. Instead, the only two shimmering windows she can see lead back to Darkfall Cave, and the last wayshrine they had found.

Disappointed that they must continue on foot through the valley, the two of them turn to head back to the path of ruins, and up into the valley proper. It’s not long at all before Eres hears water ahead of them, and a third shrine on the shore of a half-frozen river.

“Should we check the other way, too?” Serana asks, turning westward. From where they stand on the edge of the river that runs east to west, on the eastern side is the next wayshrine, clearly visible upon a small hill near the riverbank. On the other side, the riverbank curves around the edge of an outcropping of the mountainous terrain encompassing the valley around them.

Eres considers it, pausing in place. She hears something stomping in the distance, and very quickly decides against it.

“Sounds like a Giant’s over there,” she says, and her eyes trail upward to the other side of the river bank, where a waterfall spills from on high, emptying into the river they stand at from above. Even from here, Eres can feel the mist of water in the air. “We can go to that one and head up top—if there’s another wayshrine down there, maybe we can take the giant out from above before we go to it.”

Eres has fought many of Skyrim’s less civilized inhabitants, not all of whom by choice. She’s fought all manner of wildlife, bandits, forsworn, hell—she’s even fought a couple of goblins once, though she hadn’t known they were even native to Skyrim, and she hadn’t seen them since.

Eres has _not_ fought a Giant before, and she would like to keep it that way. One swift kick from one of those things could send her sky high. She’s made a point of trying to avoid angering things that much bigger than she is. It was just the logical thing to do.

But if they absolutely _had_ to get past a giant, she’d rather fight them from a distance before they had a chance to punt her to high heaven. Maybe it’d even be too stupid to figure out where the arrows were coming from.

She and Serana agree to move eastward instead, and use the high ground further up the path on the other side of the river to survey the rest of the valley and figure out where they might go next. From their count, including this one—“The Wayshrine of Learning”, as the Prelate informs them—they’ve gotten three. Gelebor hadn’t said exactly how many wayshrines there were in the valley, but Eres hoped there couldn’t be too many left.

By the heft of the ewer, she guessed there could only be a few more. Even for Serana, it must have been getting a bit heavy.

The sky had turned a deep purplish-red above them in the couple of hours since they’d wandered out of the caves, and soon night would fall around them. The temperature of the air had only dropped further as they traveled, and Eres is certain it will only get colder as they climb higher—it’s _always_ colder up high, and the wind gusting through the valley is doing her no favors.

“We’ll have to camp at the next one,” Eres says, stepping carefully across a frozen section of the river.

“Careful, here,” Serana warns. “If you fall in, I’m gonna have to drag you out of—wherever that leads,” she points, to where the river flows swiftly into a dark opening, crashing down somewhere below them. Eres would bet it led back into the cave system, but she’d prefer not to find out first hand.

“Don’t jinx me.”

They cross without incident, the ice at that part of the river surprisingly sturdy for as fast as the water moves beneath it, and then they are climbing the steep incline on the far side of the bank, to wherever that big waterfall has come from up above.

Eres huffs as the crest the hill, feeling worn to her bones. Whatever extra energy she had gained from that potion was starting to wane. She hopes they find they next wayshrine soon, or they’d have to make camp in the middle of nowhere.

Or, in this case, the middle of a frozen lake.

“Huh,” Eres, vaguely impressed, sweeps her gaze across it. It’s strange how much of the surface of the lake has frozen over, and yet still water flows strongly from beneath it, careening over the edge of the cliffs into the river down below. How cold must it be that the surface had still frozen despite the water’s current being so strong?

Serana takes several steps forward onto the ice, her frown deepening with each one.

“Is it just me,” Serana asks, looking down at her feet, “or does this ice seem a little… _thin_ , to you?”

Eres takes a step herself, and feels nothing out of the ordinary. “Maybe you’re just too heavy.” When Serana’s head snaps up to look at her, she rushes out, “I meant with the ewer!” before Serana can decide she’d make a good icicle.

“Sure you did,” Serana narrows her eyes at her, turning away. “Let’s just get across this thing before it all collapses under us.”

“Stop jinxing us.” Eres walks carefully across the ice, making sure to test her weight before she moves forward. When, after several minutes, the ice beneath her is as solid as earth under her, Eres relaxes, taking each step a bit faster. “We can make camp at that—wall thing up there,” weirdly, it looks a little familiar. Like the walls she’s seen in some ruins, with the strange writing on it. What is one doing all the way out here? “It should block some of the wind, at least.”

“Sure, just—be careful,” Serana repeats from behind her, and a little to the left. When Eres looks, the woman’s taken to walking quite a bit farther from her than she usually would.

She’s half to joking about how paranoid Serana is being when she hears it.

Something rumbling, deep beneath the ice. It’s not just a sound, either, not something that she hears only with her ears. She _feels_ it too, quaking, vibrating against the soles of her boots, rumbling up through her legs.

She looks down, face falling, half expecting to see that the ice has cracked around her feet and she’s drifting away towards the falls—because that would be just her luck, wouldn’t it—but no, the ice beneath her feet is as solid as it had been before, just as opaque and white-thick as it had always been.

She looks near her, turning in a slow circle, expecting to see a crack _somewhere_ , there must have been one—Serana, too, has frozen in place, looking around expectantly, braced for the ice around them to break apart at any moment—but there’s nothing.

The ice is solid.

Eres does not feel assured, all the same.

“Let’s hurry,” she says, turning swiftly to keep walking. Instead of heading in the direction they’d come, she changes, angling herself closer to where she might reach the edge of the ice quicker and they can just hug the cliff’s edge until they reach the wall—the ice near the edge should be thicker, she thinks, and she’d feel safer knowing she’d have something solid to grab onto in case it decides to fall out from beneath her.

The deep rumbling comes again, seeming to echo around them. The sound of it rattles in Eres’ bones, making her skin crawl.

Something about this feels _wrong_. There’s something inside her that feels—feels like a warning, like alarm bells going off in her mind. It feels a lot like when she can tell she’s not alone, like when she has the sense that there’s something she should be watching for in the darkness, like she’s going to turn a corner and something is going to jump out at her with weapons drawn.

But there are no corners on the lake, no hidden alcoves or shadowed nooks where something might be hiding. There is only the frozen lake beneath her feet and that deep, ominous rumbling, and the wall stretching into the sky just ahead of them.

Eres hears the shout of her name just an instant before Serana slams into her, throwing her to the ground—and the ice _bursts_ from beneath where Eres had just been standing, something gargantuan, massive, and _angry_ roaring up from under the water and exploding up into the sky, and not a moment later it is followed by another, just a short distance away, something just as big and even the debris of thick ice plates almost as big as Eres doesn’t break through the frozen lake beneath as it falls back to the ground, but these beasts had been strong enough to crack through it all the same, in one fell swoop.

_Dragons_.

Not one dragon. Not dragon, singular. _Dragons_. Plural. Two of them, twins—or they _look_ like twins, anyways, with similar sizes and the same sort of orangeish-red scales covering their bodies as they soar through the air, their roars piercing the ever darkening sky. One of them banks, turning back—back toward _them_.

“Oh, fuck,” Eres says, and maybe she’s not the most eloquent in the moment but fucking _dragons_.

Serana spins around next to her, flinging a tree-sized ice spike at the dragon flying towards them that clips its tail, sends it careening towards the cliff face, roaring out its fury.

“I think you made it mad!”

“It was _already_ mad!” Serana grabs her, starts climbing to her feet and pulling Eres up with her. “Get to the wall!”

The wall? The hell good is the _wall_ going to do? What the hell is _Serana_ going to do?

Serana must sense her indecision, for the frenzy in her eyes turns to something like indignance. “I can survive if I fall in—you _can’t_. Now _go_!” and she pushes her, forcefully, out of the way, towards the edge of the lake and closer to the wall looming above, even as she turns to call spells into her hands, moving in the opposite direction from Eres herself.

That _idiot_ , Eres thinks heatedly—she’s trying to draw their fire. She’s _trying_ to make them mad, because then the damn things will attack Serana and not Eres, and fuck all if Eres is more fragile than she is, Serana can still _die_. She’s not completely invulnerable.

But what the fuck can Eres hope to do against a dragon? Not just _a_ dragon, but two of them?

She has her bow, but how many arrows would it take to bring one of them down? Could her arrows even pierce them to begin with? Even if her ring had still had a charge, she’s not sure even her enchanted arrows could have pierced their hides, but—

There had to be something.

The last time she’d faced a dragon, it’d been Molag Bal. On steadier ground that couldn’t kill her if she fell into it, with the blessings of not one but _two_ gods on her side. Stendarr and Meridia couldn’t help her with this one—or they wouldn’t, she was certain of it. It wasn’t an abomination like Molag Bal had been, it was just a really fucking unfortunate situation.

But dragons. What could better fight a dragon than another dragon?

Eres remembers her promise—her promise to the one dragon in the Soul Cairn who had named her worthy.

Durnehviir.

Would he fight his own kind, even as a favor to her? Eres couldn’t know if he would, couldn’t _care_ if he’d want to—but if he’d been telling the truth about being able to come to Tamriel if she called for him, then she had no better option. Even if Durnehviir couldn’t fight them, he could at least distract them long enough for her and Serana to run, and get somewhere safe where the dragons couldn’t follow.

This isn’t like the fight with Durnehviir—they don’t have heaps of the dead for Serana to raise, don’t have an extra master necromancer on their side, don’t have a way for Eres to engineer some way to gain the upper hand. They have nothing but themselves, and the frozen lake beneath them.

Durnehviir is the only thing she can think of that might turn the tables. Eres, praying that Durnehviir had been right—calls his name out of sheer desperation.

There is a thunderous _crack_ in the air like thunder, right on top of them, and the sky breaks open.

Durnehviir crashes through the rip in their dimension with a guttural, ferocious roar, and as if he knows exactly why Eres had called him to fore, he dives for the second dragon Serana had not yet struck, lifting his torso at the last moment to crash into the smaller dragon talons-first and latch onto its body, the dragon twisting and writhing in his grip as he drops from the sky at full speed and falls directly into the side of the mountain, feet first—

The dragon held aloft in Durnehviir’s powerful claws hits the cliff face first, the rock shearing off around it and crumbling down to the earth below, and in the next moment the undead dragon has already lifted into the air again, dropping the smaller dragon from his feet and letting it roll lifelessly, slow at first over the jagged outcroppings and then, as the cliff face turns sheer and flat, the body of the dragon falls, boneless and ragdoll-like, back to the ice.

It doesn’t move.

Serana pauses in her volley, stunned speechless, and looks back at Eres.

Eres points at the other dragon, and Durnehviir, as if he simply _knows_ what she wishes of him, turns to chase the other over the length of the frozen lake and high into the sky, their roars echoing above them.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Serana says, when Eres runs back to join her, “but thank the _gods_ for the Soul Cairn.”

“You’re telling me—” Eres flinches, hearing another crash, and Durnehviir and the other dragon are on the other side of the lake, warring in the skies above. Durnehviir smashes the other dragon into the cliffside, too, but this one fights harder, wriggling from Durnehviir’s grip and roaring a blast of white-hot fire that sends Durnehviir screaming up into the air above to escape it.

“I almost feel a little bad for it,” Serana admits. She drops her hands, the frost and sparks around them fading to nothingness. “That dragon’s practically a child compared to Durnehviir.”

“Yeah, well,” that was true. The dragons had seemed larger than life when it was just the two of them against them, but compared to the hulking, house-sized form of Durnehviir, they seem almost laughably small. That Durnehviir had killed one in one move spoke volumes to their difference in power. “Better them than us.”

Still, Eres finds herself looking for the other one, not wholly convinced. It hasn’t moved since it had fallen, but it seems somehow too easy that it would die so easily. Even knowing how powerful Durnehviir was, how hard he had slammed the smaller dragon into the cliffside, she can’t help but be a little paranoid. What if it’s just faking?

She crosses nearer to it, ignoring Serana’s protests.

“I’m just checking,” she tells her. “I wanna make sure this thing is dead before it jumps up and starts attacking us again.” They should count themselves lucky this one hadn’t chosen to breathe fire on them like the other had done with Durnehviir—they’d have been roasted in an instant.

Or, Eres would have been. She’s not entirely sure how immune Serana is to such things. Regular vampires could be incinerated easily in such a way, but Serana had proven more than once to be made of stronger stuff than that.

Still, Eres does approach it with her sword unsheathed, guard up. The bloodied form of the dragon, crumpled and boneless where it lay, doesn’t so much as twitch when she approaches its form.

Compared to Durnehviir, the dragon had looked tiny. Compared to _her_ , the dragon’s head alone is the size of her entire body.

“It’s real.”

“Did you think it wasn’t?”

Eres sends a short glare over her shoulder. “I meant all those rumors about dragons coming back,” she says, turning to look at Serana. In the distance, she can see Durnehviir chasing the other dragon as it banks back toward the lake from other the valley in the distance. She hopes they steer clear of the ice lake – she’s not sure how much more abuse it can take before it all just cracks apart under their feet.

“Uh,” Serana says, red eyes going wide.

Eres spins, sword up, already leaping back, her feet sliding uncertainly on the icy surface—she almost expects to see the dragon rearing, rising up to attack her, but—

It doesn’t rise, or move, or even so much as twitch. It’s as dead as it had been before, only its flesh has started to _burn_ , as if lit from a fire within the dragon itself, its scales starting to singe and then burst into flame until nothing but ash remains, and Eres can feel the heat of it, feel the lick of flames against her, feel the swirl of wind around it as if something inside the dragon buffets it toward her—

“Eres!”

Eres turns—sees the second dragon diving for her, claws extended, scaled lips peeled back in a snarl of rage, watches as its mouth opens and something white-hot forms at the back of its throat, and _something_ wakes inside her. Something unspeakable, unnameable, unknowable.

Something that makes her mouth move and her voice _bellow_ , and what feels like thunder erupts from her lungs.

The dragonfire bears down on her—until it doesn’t. It’s as though it smacks into an invisible wall, winked out of existence, and the dragon that had been hurtling towards her smacks into it, too, and it goes tumbling end over end, rolling in the air and then slamming on to the ice and skidding to a stop, dazed.

She watches, dumbfounded, as the dragon lifts its head, making to rear back and set her aflame—and then Durnehviir lands on top of it, his front claw slamming into the dragon’s neck and Eres hears a wet, hollow _snap_.

The dragon goes limp.

And then it begins to burn, just as the last one had, and Durnehviir shuffles one step away, out of the range of that strange internal fire, but his eyes are on _Eres_. He watches her with a deep knowing within those fathomless eyes of his, and as that second dragon turns to ash beside him and the wind, that warm, buffeting wind, fills Eres’ lungs a second time in as many minutes, Durnehviir lowers his head as if in deference.

_“Qahnaarin_ ,” he intones, as if it’s more a title than a name.

“I didn’t vanquish them.” Eres says, dumbly. “You did.”

_“I am yours to command,”_ says Durnehviir, raising his head to look at her. _“And so my kills are yours, Qahnaarin. Their souls belong to you—so the gods have spoken. So mote it be.”_ He lowers his head again, so reminiscent of a bow, and Eres has no idea how to respond.

_“Briinah-Konahrik.”_

How? Eres wants to know, _how—_ How can it be she’s never studied a lick of dragon tongue, and yet—she knows what that means? She hadn’t know _Qahnaarin_ until Durnehviir had explained it, but this one—this one she knows.

_Briinah-Konahrik_. Sister-Commander. 

“Dragonborn,” Eres hears Serana say, in a muted whisper from beside her. “Eres, you’re _Dragonborn_?”

Eres looks at her, frowning. Serana says that like she should know what it means.

“I’m what now?” 


	15. Dragon Rising

ACT III  
CHAPTER XV  
“DRAGON RISING”

“How long can you stay?” Eres drops the half-frozen firewood to the snow in front of the wall, and she can’t help but to glance at it again, as if her sudden understanding of the words written there will have faded since the last time she’s looked. It hasn’t. She still sees the dragon language, the markings that look as though etched by the claws of the dragons themselves, and she still understands it, somehow. _Dovahzul_ , Durnehviir had called it.

Durnehviir raises his eyes to look at her, looking half-sleepy where he rests on the ice not far from them, spread casually upon it like he belongs there. She wonders if it’s just her, or if his scales seem a bit more solid than they had in the Soul Cairn, if he seems just a bit more corporeal than he had before.

 _“Not much longer, I imagine,”_ the dragon rumbles at her, oddly calm in the wake of the knowledge that he will again be banished to the Soul Cairn before long. _“If you have questions, Qahnaarin, now would be the time to ask.”_

“This is…” Serana shakes her head, looking between Durnehviir’s form and the skeletons of the other two dragons on either side of the frozen lake around them. “Bizarre.” She looks at Eres then, frowning. “You _really_ didn’t know you were Dragonborn?”

Eres sighs, stepping away from the wall and the wood she’s gathered there. She takes several steps until she’s cleared the wall entirely, shivering when the wind gusts at her back again, and waves her hand toward it.

Almost casually, Durnehviir opens his mouth and breathes— _“Yol”_ , in a mere whisper. Instead of the roar of super-hot flames that the other dragon had bellowed against Eres, a small, tightly controlled stream of fire erupts from his maw.

Even as tiny as that flame was in comparison to Durnehviir’s own size, its blast bathes the wall in flames as well as everything in front of it. When the dragon closes his mouth again, the flames recede to a much tinier point—the wood Eres had stacked against the wall, now burning eagerly, crackling and popping as the logs bow to the heat of it.

“Having a pet dragon comes in handy, it seems,” Serana quips, shrugging as she moves back towards the wall.

Durnehviir rumbles mutinously at that.

“He’s not a pet,” Eres responds, at almost the same time. She moves back in front of the wall as well, glad to be out of the wind and near the fire. She goes quickly to her pack to pull her tent and stakes out, more than ready to rest for the night.

“Dragonborn,” Eres moves to set her tent within the area the wall blocks from the wind that gusts over the cliffside. “What does that mean?”

“Someone with the blood of a dragon,” Serana says, just as Durnehviir says, _“My kin.”_

Eres looks between both of them, and frowns.

 _“You know of Dovahkin, vampire?”_ Durnehviir asks Serana, raising his head again.

“I know a bit.” Serana moves to sit close to the fire—vampire or no, Eres knows she’s not a fan of the cold weather. She doesn’t seem to be a fan of _any_ weather, really, but she especially dislikes being colder than she usually is. “Just what I’ve read in history books—about the old ones. The first Dragonborn—Miraak was his name, I think.” Durnehviir nods his giant head, as if to confirm.

“After that it was—I don’t think any mention of Dragonborn appeared again until Saint Alessia. I've read a bit about her since I woke up.” Serana shrugs helplessly. “They’re pretty rare, so the origins of the Dragonborn are a little fuzzy, but there’s tales of them dating back millennia—older than me, even, if you can believe it.”

Durnehviir rumbles at that, nodding. _“She may answer your questions, then,”_ he says simply. _“I fear my time upon this plane may be coming to an end.”_

Eres doesn’t quite know when she started to feel sorry for him, but she does feel a pang of regret. “I wish we could keep you here longer.”

Durnehviir makes a strange sound, something between a growl and something that sounds deep and grumbling, and it takes Eres a moment to realize he’s laughing. Or, whatever the dragon equivalent of that was.

 _“You have given me more time than I could have hoped for, even now,”_ he says to her. He rises on his feet, towering above them both, but he lowers his head again so that she does not have to crane her neck back to meet his eyes. _“I ask only that you call me again when the time is right. And I shall teach you another word of power—”_

“Word of power,” Eres interjects hurriedly, “What is that?”

 _“It is the power you wield for being Dovahkiin_ ,” Durnehviir explains, more patiently than she might have expected. _“The language of our people—the Dovah—has power within it. You speak, and the world listens. A Word of Power—it is one such manifestation of that power within. It is how you bested that one.”_ Durnehviir swings his massive head, looking towards the skeleton of the one whose neck he had broken. _“The word of power you used then was **Fus** —meaning—”_

“Force,” Eres finishes, somehow already knowing the answer. She hadn’t even known she’d spoken it in the moment, it had just _happened_. She’d just _reacted_ , without thinking. “Will that happen every time I say that word?”

 _“Be cautious in how you use the Thu’um—or Shout, in your tongue,”_ Eres is no longer sure whether he translates for _her_ or for Serana, at this point. _“Though you are kin to me, your form is weak. You cannot use this power so indiscriminately as I might.”_

Eres nods—her voice _has_ been a bit hoarse since then. She’d thought it was just the adrenaline of the moment, or maybe she was simply catching cold, but it made sense that such a thing would affect her this way.

 _“I will teach you my Word,”_ Durnehviir says, straightening. The tips of his wings seem to be—fading. Almost translucent. And that almost see-through quality is beginning to spread to the rest of him, slowly but surely. Eres know his time is short.

 _“As promised, I bestow upon you this knowledge—a Gift, from me to you, Qahnaarin. An equal exchange for the chance to breathe the air of Tamriel once more, and—”_ Durnehviir’s maw spreads, baring his teeth in what might possibly be the most unsettling smile Eres has ever seen, _“allowing me to thrill in the fight once more.”_

 _“Rii,”_ Durnehviir breathes the word into her, speaking it into her being, into her conscious. At once, she knows what it means, what it can be used for—and she feels a chill down her spine.

“Essence,” Eres translates, when Serana gives her a quizzical look. “Thank you, Durnehviir—for saving us.”

Durnehviir voices his rumbling chuckle once more, even as his form begins to fade away entirely.

_“No, Qahnaarin—I thank **you**. I look forward to the next time you call upon me. Perhaps next time will be more of a challenge.” _

His growl-like chuckle echoes in her ears even as his form fades entirely—and then he is gone, as if he had never been there at all.

“He seemed to enjoy that,” Serana notes wryly.

“Dragons fought all the time back then, didn’t they?” Eres turns away from where Durnehviir had been, and turns her attention back to setting up her tent. The fire is nice—and she’s certainly glad Durnehviir had helped them light it, given that all the wood they’d found had been near frozen solid, but it won’t do much good for her if the wind’s chill is still piercing her bones the way it is. Once she gets her tent up, the heat can be trapped inside, and she can _sleep_.

Finally.

“Explains a lot.”

Eres looks up at her dry tone, her brow furrowing. “What does that mean?”

“You _do_ just walk into danger all the time.” Eres’ eyes narrow. “Now that I know you’re Dragonborn—suddenly a lot of things about you make sense.”

“Are you messing with me again?”

“No, actually.” Serana almost looks just as surprised as Eres feels. “Something about you has been off since I met you—not in that kind of way, don’t look at me like that. I only mean that it’s felt like there’s something missing. I thought… I don’t remember much about what your blood tastes like anymore, unfortunately, but the smell of it—it’s hard to describe. There’s you, somewhere—something like the forest and fall, and incense. But under that, there’s this—this _burning_.”

“Burning?”

“Do you remember when we passed by Helgen?” Eres nods—how could she have forgotten? “There was this scent in the air there—like brimstone and dragon-fire. Dragon-fire smells different from anything else. Stronger, more pungent… More dangerous. You—You’ve always smelled a bit like that, underneath it all.” Serana gives her a queer look, her brows knitting together. “It’s actually a bit stronger now, to be honest with you. It’s kind of distracting.”

“I’m sorry?” Eres offers, unsure how to respond to that. She smells like _burning_? Was that good or bad? Did she _smell_ like a dragon, too? “You said you knew about Dragonborn—Durnehviir didn’t have a chance to explain. What is it?”

“Well, it’s—it’s just like I said. You have the blood of a dragon in you.”

“Last I checked, neither of my parents are dragons.” She might not remember her mother very well, but she’s fairly certain she’d have remembered if the woman had been a bloody _dragon_. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Serana sighs, exasperated. “It’s hard to explain. It’s—I used to think it was a myth, honestly. It was brought up in history books, of course, but so much of history is just hearsay, and you kind of have to sift out what’s fact and what isn’t. The whole Dragonborn thing has always felt like more of a legend or folktale than something real, somehow.”

“I mean, I knew—I’d read of Miraak, of course. He was the first Dragonborn, supposedly. I’m not really sure what happened to him, or Saint Alessia—I read the books, but it was a long time ago. But I thought—for some reason I found it hard to believe that a human, a mortal, could have that kind of power. But here you are.”

“Here I am,” Eres mutters, and she plops heavily down upon her bedroll, situated at the opening of her tent nearest to the fire. With the tent’s hide blocking much of the wind, and the heat from the fire making it within, she’s finally starting to feel warm again.

“You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“Why would I be?” Eres just wants to go to bed. This is too much. All of it—the Vigilants, Molag Bal, the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy, Harkon—all of it is just _too much_. There’s only so much she can do. She’s just one person. “This sounds like it’s going to be a problem.”

“What makes you think it’ll be a problem?” Serana asks. “Being Dragonborn—that means you’re not just a typical mortal. You’re stronger, more resilient, harder to kill, probably—hell, it probably explains why you’ve even gotten this far without dying, even if you didn’t know it yet. This is a gift, Eres.”

“Is it?” Eres counters. “How much of this gift comes with a price? What does being Dragonborn _mean_?”

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough,” Serana says, shrugging helplessly. “The Nords—the Dragonborn is one of their most revered legends. You could have incredible power and influence in Skyrim, Eres. You could—hell, you could probably end that stupid war yourself if you wanted to. Who would have a better claim to the throne than someone related to dragons?”

Eres scoffs at that, rolling her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.” She throws herself back to lay on her bedroll, feeling a pounding in her temples. “I’m just me.”

“Well ‘ _just you’_ is going to have to get used to being pretty damn important. Once people realize what you are—”

“I’d rather they didn’t.”

Serana sighs, and soon Eres sees her ducking into the tent to lay down beside her on the second bedroll that Eres has always laid out just in case. Serana very rarely sleeps, or lies down at all, really, but Eres had always felt it impolite to just assume she wouldn’t want to rest, too.

Now, Serana props herself on her elbows, looking down at her with soft understanding in her eyes.

“You really _don’t_ want to be Dragonborn, do you.”

It’s not really a question, but Eres answers it anyways.

“Not really, no,” she says, shrugging as best she can while lying down. “I’ve already got enough to worry about as it is. This thing with your father, the Vigilants, Fellburg—I have enough responsibility already. I have enough people to worry about. I get the feeling this Dragonborn thing is just—it’s just one more thing to worry about. One more role I have to play.”

Eres sighs, turning her eyes to the dark hide ceiling of their tent. If it was a warmer night, she could have stared up at the stars, been comforted by how small she was—how small they _all_ are—in comparison to the cosmos at large. Her problems had always seemed insignificant when she remembered just how _big_ the world was out there.

“No one says you _have_ to do these things, Eres. You can always say no.”

Eres’ mouth twists, and she doesn’t know how to tell her that, _no_ , she can’t. She’s never been good at saying no. She’s always been bad at it. She’s even worse when she feels like saying no would let someone down, would put someone else out. How could she have said no to Gwyneth, knowing how that girl would have buckled under the pressure and stress of being Keeper? How could she have said no to _Serana_ , knowing that no one else would have trusted and helped her the way Eres had?

Eres knows, when the time comes and someone asks _The Dragonborn_ for help—she knows she’ll say yes then, too.

Because she always does. She always has, and she always will. Even when she wishes she could say no. Even when she really _wants_ to say no—she won’t. She knows it.

Serana knows it, too.

“You have to take care of yourself sometimes, too, you know,” Serana murmurs softly, and there’s so _much_ in her voice right then that Eres can’t even bring herself to look at her. She’s not sure she could handle what she might see. “You matter just as much as anyone else does. Maybe more so.”

She’s not sure about _more_ , but well—this is just who she is. She’s always been like this. She can’t change it. People don’t change. Not that easily.

“I’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Eres says instead, deciding that it’s easier not to address the rest of it. It’s easier to pretend she doesn’t notice the depth of the affection in Serana’s voice, the warmth of her caring in a tent that suddenly seems far too small for the both of them.

Serana hums next to her, unconvinced.

“I suppose _I’ll_ just have to take care of you then,” Serana says, almost flippantly. “If you’re not going to.”

Eres looks at her, and nothing about Serana’s gaze is flippant.

It’s not fair just how easily Serana can take her breath away. Fitting, maybe, being that she’s a vampire—but it’s still not _fair._


	16. Glacial Crevice

ACT III  
CHAPTER XVI   
GLACIAL CREVICE

The next morning, Eres wakes to the sun in her eyes, not hot, but blinding all the same. When she sits up and squints out of the tent opening, she can see the sun just starting to rise over the peaks of the mountains in the distance—and the way its light has just crested over the side of the wall protecting them from the wind.

“You slept late,” Serana says, and without waiting for an answer, the woman hands her a bowl of something warm and hearty – something that smells suspiciously like stew.

Hardly conscious, Eres squints at her next, wonderingly. How long had Serana been waiting for her to wake that she’d managed to make an entire meal without her noticing? To that end, why had Serana even bothered? Vampires didn’t need food like this to survive.

Serana, when she does not immediately grab for the bowl, sighs, puts it to her own lips, and takes a sip.

“I mean, _I_ don’t see the appeal in it,” Serana says, making a face, “but it tastes… alright, I guess. I think. Just eat it. If it’s bad, then you should have woken up sooner.”

Eres rubs at her eyes, and sits up fully, pulling her fur blankets around her shoulders to keep out the chill. Without her armor and cloak on, the wind feels even colder than it had yesterday, but the bowl between her hands warms her. And, surprisingly, it doesn’t taste completely terrible. It’s actually quite passable, as far as camp stews go, though it could have used some kind of spices in it.

“It’s not bad,” she says to Serana, who shrugs as though she doesn’t care—but Eres does see the ghost of a smile upon her lips. Serana’s pleased with that, even if she doesn’t want to show it. “Why does a vampire know how to cook?”

“I wasn’t always a vampire, you know. At one point, I must have eaten food like this, too.” She frowns. “Don’t remember much of it though. And I never cooked.” She sends Eres a smirk, amusement glinting in her bright red eyes. “You should consider yourself lucky that’s even edible.”

Eres does inspect the meat a bit more closely after that, but it seems Serana had overcooked it just to be safe—the meat was tough and chewy, but fully cooked, at least, and she isn’t like to be sick from it.

“It’s a good effort for someone who doesn’t need to cook,” Eres says. “I’d offer to teach you myself, but I’ve never been very good.”

In the house she’d been raised in, she’d had very little need to learn to cook—they had kitchen staff for that kind of thing. Her father had let the housekeepers go long before he’d gotten rid of the cooks, even when he had been destitute and too poor to pay them. By the time her father had died, she’d learned to make a few simple meals on her own, but nothing extravagant. Johanna would have been a far better teacher than herself.

Eres finishes the stew—she doesn’t ask where Serana had gotten the meat and vegetables, as she’s certain the woman won’t admit to having gone out of her way to do it to begin with, but the thought warms her almost as well as her cloak does, when she finally tugs it on. It seemed Serana had meant what she’d said, after all.

“Did you get any rest?” She asks of Serana, while she pulls on her boots.

“I’ve been resting most of my life away,” Serana says dryly. “Or un-life, whatever you want to call it. I’ve had enough rest. Someone had to watch out for you.”

“Like there’s anyone else in these valleys,” Eres mutters, but she does appreciate it—even if she wishes Serana would take some time to herself at night instead of prowling the campsite looking for trouble. Or, apparently, hunting to find things for Eres to eat in the morning.

“There’s still the Falmer,” Serana offers. She stands, stamps out what remains of the fire. “I found the next wayshrine.” Eres raises her brows at that, not expecting Serana to have wandered that far. Then Serana gives her a wry look and adds, “It’s just over that hill—we were practically on top of it when we set camp.”

She points, to the western end of the frozen lake where Eres can see the remnants of an archway, and what looks like a half-buried set of stairs cut into the hillside. What’s beyond it, she can’t see from this angle, but she imagines the wayshrine must be close enough that Serana had felt safe leaving her alone while she checked for it.

With Serana’s help, they pack away the rest of the camp—Eres’ tent and two bedrolls, the small pot Serana had used to cook the stew, and a single ladle and spoon that Serana washed off in the snow beside the wall.

When Serana slings the ewer over her shoulders next to the scrolls, Eres frowns at her. “Be careful with that thing. I don’t want to have to go trekking through this valley again.”

“The portals are open, anyways,” Serana says, shrugging. “And I’m fairly certain this thing is enchanted not to spill when you don’t want it to—none of it spilled out during that fight with the dragon, even when it should have.”

Eres remembers Serana diving for her, the way she’d spun on her back to throw the spike of ice—and the way the ewer had been loose upon her back, jostled by the dive and the sudden movement. Not a drop had spilled then, and Eres had been too worried about _dragons_ to even wonder at why.

“At least there’s that,” she sighs, and shoulders her own pack. “Hopefully there’s not too many of these shrines left.”

“Just one, I think, after this one.”

They leave the word wall behind, their campsite broken behind them, and travel up the hillside on the western edge of the frozen lake, beneath the archway.

As Serana had suggested, Eres sees the dome just as they crest the hill, in such a place that it had been _just_ out of sight from where they’d made camp. Strangely enough, the dome is still set into the ground, the prelate still waiting patiently.

“You didn’t fill it yet?”

Serana shrugs. “I didn’t want to do it without you.” Eres blinks. “Besides, I left the ewer at camp when I came looking. I didn’t feel like doubling back again.”

Hm—Eres isn’t sure if she believes that part, but at the same time, Serana choosing not to get it over with just because she’d wanted Eres with her didn’t sound that much more likely, either.

The Prelate clasps his hands as they approach, smiling that empty-eyed smile that never fails to set Eres on edge.

“Welcome, Initiate,” says the Prelate. “To the Wayshrine of Resolution. Are you prepared to honor the mantras of Auri-El and fill your vessel with His enlightenment?”

Eres purses her lips together and nods, not trusting herself to speak. Beside her, Serana covers her mouth with a hand, grinning.

“Then go forth, my child. May the enrichment of Auri-El strengthen your resolve as you undertake your journey to the Inner Sanctum.”

When the Prelate turns to raise the dome, Eres favors Serana with a glare, elbowing her sharply. Serana pulls the ewer from her back, managing somehow to look innocent when she’s the furthest from it.

“Just fill the ewer,” Eres mutters, when Serana smirks at her over her shoulder.

“Fill my vessel or yours?”

“ _Serana_.”

“Fine,” Serana huffs, rolling her eyes, and goes to fill the ewer. The Prelate stands blankly at attention near Eres, as unmoving and unbothered as the stone that forms the wayshrine’s arches.

Just as Serana had suggested, when Eres looks within the wayshrine to the stone arches, four of the five archways now have the familiar shimmering image of portals across their openings—three of which, Eres knows will lead to other wayshrines. The last leading back to the cavern they started in.

“We should be able to move across this valley a lot faster now,” Serana says, replacing the ewer upon her back. It knocks loudly against the scrolls there as she moves, the sound deep and resonant instead of the hollowness it had sounded with at the start.

“Let’s hope we don’t have to go back for any reason.” While Eres is certainly glad to see the other wayshrine portals—it will likely make traveling back to the cave much easier, once they need to return to Skyrim—she’s hoping they haven’t missed one in their haste to move through the valley. The last one, she hopes, will be further into the canyon she can see in front of them, stretching above the half-frozen river down below.

“Let’s get moving.” Serana moves ahead of her, sure-footed and the very picture of stability even as the wind gusts at her, yanking at her cloak, whipping the fabric violently as it goes.

Eres looks across the canyon, sees the paths they must take on high, and sighs. She will have to step carefully—the force of the wind so high up may not bother Serana, but she’s not quite as sturdy. If the gale-force winds manages to blow her over, it would only take a few steps for her to tumble off the edge of one of the stone paths and plummet down to the river below. If the fall doesn’t kill her, the plunge into the icy water beneath them might.

On they travel, across the first path that crosses the canyon, and then it leads down an incline, and Eres isn’t too certain of where they must go from there. She would bet they’re to follow the river—by all manner of logic, it would make sense to build an establishment along the banks of the river for easy access, but she can’t see the same ruins and half-crumbled archways and walls she had seen on the way here.

“This way,” Serana points out, up a much steeper incline above them. “I think that leads to the path above.” And she moves her hand, pointing to another path even higher than the first. “We should be able to see where we’re going better from up there.”

Eres looks at the path Serana has pointed out for them, and silently pulls out her bow. She recognizes those messily-woven makeshift fences. Falmer are nearby, she’s sure of it, and she doesn’t want them to get the jump on her. Especially not here, where one misstep might mean her death.

They climb higher, encountering the chitin-crafted sheds of Falmer dwellings, and a few Falmer spread widely across the heights of the canyon.

Serana makes quick work of the few they run into up close, while Eres keeps her eyes trained on the paths in the distance—with her bow, she manages to kill several before they even come upon them, though the strength of the wind makes it much harder to aim than she’d like. After the fifth arrow goes embarrassingly wide, Eres scowls and puts her bow away. At this point, she’s just wasting them.

“This wind is ridiculous,” she says, and Serana’s head turns toward her from ahead, but the woman’s brow furrows.

“What?” Serana shouts back, over a sudden gust of wind that blow her short hair so strongly it nearly covers her entire face.

Eres shakes her head—it’s not worth the bother of trying to shout over the whistling gale.

Instead they move in relative silence, using the simplest of hand signals they can manage to communicate—a point there to alert the other of a Falmer in the distance, a raised hand to indicate a stop, a beckoning to show the path is clear.

By the time they reach the end of the valley, where the river ends in a glacier squeezed between the two sides of the canyon, where the river flows ice cold from beneath it, Eres has not spotted a single sign of another wayshrine.

Cursing under her breath, Eres turns back from where they’d come—but she can see nothing beyond the rocks and crevices of the canyon they’ve climbed down into, and the river bubbling through the rocks beneath their feet.

Eres steps closer to Serana, a palm on her shoulder, and points towards where she sees a snowy path leading upward, nearly as high as any of the paths they’d seen coming up—the paths they’d taken to get there had not been as high as some of the others they’d seen on the way, but Eres had not found any way to get to those. By taking the snowy path, they might be able to see the tops of the others, and perhaps where they might find ways to get to them. If the wayshrine was somewhere up top, they would need a vantage point to locate it.

Serana nods her understanding, and together the two of them start the treacherous climb up the side of the mountain, stepping into hard packed snow that crumbles and slips beneath their feet, making the climb much more difficult than it should have been. Even Serana, as graceful as she is, stumbles more than once, using her hands to brace herself in the snow. More than once Eres hears the woman swear viciously under her breath.

When they at last reach the top of the incline, Eres turns a slow circle, eyes fixed upon the tops of the paths she can see from the short peak they stand upon.

She sees no archways, no crumbled walls, no half-reclaimed stones that might have once been pieces of snow elf architecture. She sees nothing that might have told them where they might go next.

Then Serana’s hand lands heavily on her shoulder, nearly knocking her over.

“Look there!” Serana has to lean close to be heard over the wind, and she pulls Eres to the other side of the peak—from here, they can see the frozen lake just beyond, stretching out below them.

Eres looks, but doesn’t see whatever Serana has seen. “There’s nothing there.”

With a scoff, Serana takes Eres’ head in her hands and forcibly turns it until her eyes fix upon a peak in the distance, rising above the frozen lake—a peak upon which some kind of building or overlook has been built, out of familiar looking sand-white stone.

It isn’t a wayshrine, that much Eres can see from here, but if she had to make a guess, she’d bet it was the temple they were looking for.

Her brows draw together as she frowns, tracing that peak down below to the lake. She hadn’t seen it from beneath, when she’d looked upwards while the dragons had fought. She knew there were no paths leading upwards from the lake, and looking from afar, she could not see any paths that might have been hidden from below, either.

The chantry—if that was indeed what she’s looking at—would have to be approached from the other side of the mountain. The other side of the mountain that they can’t reach from here.

“Did we miss a shrine?”

Serana shakes her head, forcibly turns Eres’ body so that she looks back into the canyon they’d climbed up from, and she points back to the glacier, and the stream of river water that flows from beneath it. She can just see the tiniest bit of a shadow from where they stand, as if there’s a small crevice there.

“I think we have to go inside,” Serana says, leaning into her. Even shouting so closely to her ear, Eres can barely hear her over the wind. “There must be a way up through there.”

Eres isn’t so sure about that—what if there’s nothing in there? But she does see Falmer-woven fences situated near it, and perhaps that means the Falmer have made some use out of whatever might be within that crevice. If they’re lucky, maybe the Falmer were smart enough to have carved a path through it to the other side.

Back down the snowy path they go, half sliding to the bottom, and to the glacier they hike, to what Eres had once thought a dead end.

Up close, Eres can indeed see that there is a crevice cut into it just above where the river flows out from beneath it—but there is no path leading inside.

Eres calls a small ball of light to her hand, and sends it to float into the shadowed crevice, illuminating the ice that forms its opening—and the water beneath it. She can see _something_ on the other side, something that looks solid enough to walk on, or climb on top of, but to get there, they will have to swim.

Swim through freezing cold water, with freezing cold air temperatures, into a frozen glacier.

For obvious reasons, the thought does not appeal to Eres.

“Come on,” Serana beckons, unconcerned—because of course she would be.

“Serana, I’ll freeze to death if I go in there.” Eres has a feeling that Serana is right; that they will find the way to the next wayshrine—and the chantry—if they cut through the glacier ahead of them, but she’s _mortal_. One dip into that river and she’ll be half frozen.

Serana looks her up and down, then tugs her forward. “Trust me,” she says, and pulls her forward.

“Serana—”

Serana grabs her by either arm, holds her in place, looks down at her with those too-bright red eyes of hers, right into her eyes.

“Do you trust me?” Serana asks, staring at her so intensely that Eres feels like she _has_ to look away, or she might burn under the strength of her gaze.

“You know I trust you.”

“Do you trust I would never do anything to hurt you?”

Eres sighs. “You know I do.”

“Then trust me on this,” Serana insists. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I have a plan.”

“Mind telling me this plan of yours?” Eres asks, doubtful. “Doesn’t involve fireballs, does it?”

Serana rolls her eyes at that. “No, it doesn’t. I should be able to pull the water from your clothes once we’re on dry land again. Hopefully that should keep you from dying.”

Eres’ eyes narrow— _hopefully?_ “You’ve been able to do that the whole time? Why didn’t you do it in the cave?”

“We had a way to make fire in the cave,” Serana says, shrugging. “And it’s not exactly the easiest thing to do, you know. But I can do it.”

“ _Can_ you?” Eres trusts Serana, she does, but she can’t help but to worry. She might be jumping into a death sentence here—she wants to be _sure_.

“If I can raise the dead, I can manage a little water, Eres,” Serana says dryly. “It’s complicated, but it’s not impossible. Now _come on_ , we got a late start and there’s no telling how far that shrine is. I’d like to make it through this before it gets dark and we have to camp out here again.”

With a sigh, Eres nods. “Fine.” She makes a note to see an alchemist once they get home—to Skyrim. She’s never had much patience for alchemy herself, but she knows there are ways to increase a body’s resistance to cold for situations just like this. She should have prepared for this long ago.

“Let me go first.” Serana turns to the opening again. “I think I hear something on the other side. I’ll let you know when to come over.”

Eres listens, she tries—but she doesn’t hear anything beyond the bubbling of the river across stones underfoot, and the bellowing gust of the wind up above them. “Alright.”

Serana sends her an assuring smile, then ducks into the crevice, stepping all-too calmly into the icy water of the river—and then she disappears underneath it, nothing more than a dark silhouette beneath the water as she swims through the short channel to the other side.

Eres waits, impatient, one hand braced on the side of the crevice, peering into its darkness. She could see Serana’s dark, drenched figure as the woman climbs back out of the water, onto the solid ground Eres had glimpsed with her magelight spell from earlier—and then Serana raises spells to her hands, stepping out of view.

Eres hears thunder, echoing from beyond, sees the flashes of bright purple and white-blue and deep red of Serana’s magic as she fights something on the other side—fights without _her_ next to her.

Eres knows she shouldn’t worry. Serana can handle whatever’s on the other side, she knows it. If anything, Eres is probably the one holding _Serana_ back, being as mortal and fragile as she is. Were it just Serana, that woman could have just blazed through the entire valley on her own, Falmer be damned.

But vampire or not, Serana can still be hurt. Still be killed. And Eres still worries for her all the same.

In short order, the flashing lights fade, and then she sees the silhouette return—and crouch down to shout through the crevice.

“Remember to hold your breath,” Serana calls across. “The cold is going to be a shock to you.”

Eres is all too aware of that. One of the biggest dangers of taking a dive into ice-cold waters is the body’s tendency to freeze up from the shock of it, to gasp in when she should be holding her breath. She’ll have to fight against her body’s own instincts just to make it across.

On an afterthought, Eres removes her pack, drops it in the water, and kicks it across.

As short as the channel is, even with the current drawing it outward, the bag manages to bump against the ground on the other side, and Serana picks it up and sets it beside her. Then she beckons with a hand, urging her forward.

“Come on,” Serana urges. “I’d rather get you across and dried off before these Falmer in here realize they’ve got company.”

Oh, even better—she has a fight to look forward to on the other side. As if half-killing herself with hypothermia wasn’t enough to worry about.

Eres takes a deep breath, steels herself, and dives in.

It feels like her entire body seizes as soon as its submerged, muscles going rigid and stiff at the shock of the icy water surrounding her. Her teeth dig into her lips, biting down so hard with the effort of trying not to gasp on instinct that she tastes blood—and then she’s forcing herself to swim across with lead-heavy limbs, feeling like she might sink if she stops moving.

It seems too short of a gap to feel like as long as journey as it does, but then Serana’s hands are on her shoulders and back, hauling her out of the water and onto solid ground again, and Eres is gasping, teeth chattering and every muscle in her body shaking and trembling with the cold of it—

And then she feels something like a pulling, a tugging all over, something like a curtain being drawn over her skin as Serana tugs the water from her clothes and flings it back into the river beneath them.

Almost as quickly as the water had engulfed her, Serana has pulled it off her, leaving her so thoroughly dry in its wake that even her lips feel unnaturally chapped. But her body still shivers violently, her muscles still tremble, and even standing is a monumental effort—even with Serana supporting her.

“N-never a-again,” Eres manages, closing and opening her fingers over and over and over until they feel like they’re attached to her body again, if only distantly.

“Let’s hope not,” Serana says, her tone as sardonic as ever, but her eyes are filled with a deep, almost remorseful concern. “Are you okay?”

“B-been better.” The shivers are less frequent, but just as strong, sending full body twitches that make her wonder if this is what it’s like to have seizures. “Gimme a m-minute.”

With far more effort than it should have taken, Eres calls fire to her hands, or she tries—but the spark fizzles, flutters, and starts to die even as pain spikes through her temples. Serana’s hands come to cup her own, and the fire bolsters, rallies, grows in size until it’s the size of a large fist between them.

The heat that comes off it is just enough that the shakes begin to retreat, her body catching up—the shock is over, the cold is gone, and her body only needs to understand that it’s warm again, that the danger has passed.

“R-remind why I didn’t want to be a vampire again,” Eres says, only half-joking—being impervious to the cold sounded quite good right about then.

“You tell me,” Serana replies, tapping her fingers against the back of Eres’ hands until she looks up at her. Serana raises her brows. “I wouldn’t have to worry so much if you were.”

Eres swallows, and looks away. “It’s—” She can’t tell her. Not now. Not when they’re so close. Maybe—maybe after it was all over, and Harkon was dealt with. Maybe then she’d feel like she could tell her everything about what had happened with Altano. “I’m a Vigilant,” she manages. The excuse sounds flimsy even to her.

Serana, though, only nods. If she believes that Eres is hiding something, she doesn’t show it openly. “Fair enough,” she says simply. “I expect the Vigilants aren’t that much more fond of vampires than the Dawnguard are.”

“That’s putting it lightly.” If the Vigilants knew their Keeper was working alongside a vampire, they’d probably burn her at the stake. No matter what her reasons were.

Eres shudders a last time, and rolls her shoulders. “Can you dry off my pack?” She asks, closing her hands—and putting the fire the two of them had made together out in the process.

In the dark, Serana’s eyes glow at her, reflecting all light that hits them. For a moment, the woman watches her, measuring, and Eres isn’t even sure what she’s looking for. Maybe she’s more suspicious of Eres’ past than she lets on. But now’s not the right time.

It’s never the right time.

“Sure,” Serana says, after a long moment. She reaches down for Eres’ pack, and, closing her eyes, manages to pull the water from it, too. When she opens her eyes again and hands it back, they look a bit brighter than they had before.

“That took a lot out of you,” Eres realizes. “Are you okay?”

Serana shrugs. “A bit hungry, but I’ll be fine. It’s just a lot harder for me to use magic that way. I don’t know how you do it.”

“I don’t know that I _could_ have done it,” Eres admits. Practical magic may have been her specialty, but isolating the water like that and pulling it from the fabric without causing any damage—she’s not certain she could have done that in this situation. She’s not certain she could have done it even in a controlled environment, with enough time to attain a proper focus and at her strongest and most mentally sound. Fragile workings like that weren’t really her best subject.

“I’m sure you could have.” Serana sounds all too confident in her abilities, like Eres can do anything she puts her mind to.

Eres is not used to being at the receiving end of that kind of confidence, and so she turns away from it, unsure how to respond. “It looks like the Falmer have made a home here,” she says instead, looking upward—upward at the paths carved into the ice, at the little Falmer-huts she can see dotting them.

“I’m starting to think they’ll just make a home anywhere as long as it’s dark and creepy,” Serana mutters. “Hopefully there’s not too many of them here.”

“Hopefully,” Eres adds, “there’s a path to the next shrine in here.”

“Maybe they’ve built around it.” Serana suggests, shrugging as they climb upward. “It wouldn’t surprise me, if these are the Betrayed that Gelebor was talking about. They might have just built outward from the Chantry after they took it over.”

Eres’ mouth twists. “If that’s the case, we should expect more of them as we get closer. They’d probably be more concentrated towards the Chantry, if they’ve built outwards from it.”

“Just what I hoped for,” Serana drawls. She spots a Falmer ducking out of one of the huts, growling as it hears them approach, and almost lazily flings a spike of ice at it. It doesn’t so much hurt the Falmer as it bowls him over—sending him tipping over the side of the path and plunging into the river below.

It’s weirdly attractive how casual Serana’s use of magic is, how easy she finds it to call the power to her fingertips. Eres wishes she could do the same. Her arrows have precious little effect on the Falmer who have outfitted themselves with the chitin shells of the chaurus pets they keep unless she manages to aim for the neck or head, and at a distance, it’s much harder to be that accurate.

She almost wishes they were undead, or vampires—at least then, she could have used Dawnbreaker, counting on Meridia’s fury towards their existence to aid her in battle. But as it had always been in the absence of vampires—with the notable exception of Serana, that was—Meridia’s blade is silent at her back.

“I’m getting really tired of heights,” she mutters, as they climb ever higher. Her dislike of heights is made even worse by the fact that the Falmer’s idea of a bridge is little more than those same woven fence-like structures stretched across the gaps between the natural paths of the glacier.

Serana pats her silently on the back in sympathy. “Try not to fall in,” she tells her lightly. “If you fall, I’m going to have to dive in after you—and I’m not going to be very happy about it.”

“If I survive,” Eres mutters under her breath, glancing downward. Much of what’s below them is water, maybe, but from this height she’d plunge quite deep, and then she’d have to hope her muscles didn’t freeze up before she could make it to the surface. It would be all too easy to drown in these waters.

“Don’t talk like that.” Serana’s voice is sharp, almost heated. “You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”

Eres snorts. “I’m not looking forward to being raised from the dead. If I die, let me rest—I don’t want to be one of those things following you around.” As if to make her point, she eyes the Falmer Serana has raised behind them, the one that keeps growling in her ears. The sound of it grits at her nerves, but its hearing is far better than either of theirs is, and it’s not a terrible shot with a bow, either.

Serana sends the Falmer ahead of them, loping unnaturally, and even the puppet-like movement of the dead is weirdly fitting for a Falmer. It doesn’t look all that different from one of the living ones, discounting the bluish aura that surrounds it.

Eres watches it engage one of the unsuspecting Falmer in a hut ahead of them. It kills one, then is killed by the second—somehow, Falmer raised from the dead are even dumber than the living ones.

Almost absently, Serana raises the Falmer that had been its victim, and the fight begins anew.

“This almost feels like cheating.”

“Better them than us,” Serana shrugs. Still, her eyes only look redder than before.

“Maybe you should take it a bit easier.” Eres eyes her, not suspiciously but with concern—she knows that Serana is weaker when she’s hungry, and the constant use of magic is only tiring her out more quickly. “I don’t imagine you want to feed from one of them.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Then stop raising them,” Eres mutters back, pushing forward. “We should be able to handle them.”

“The quicker we get through here, the better.”

“Maybe,” Eres agrees, “but then we have Vyrthur to deal with. I’d rather have you in top form when we get to him. We don’t know how strong he might be. I imagine Gelebor didn’t go after him for a reason—he could have an army of Falmer in there for all we know.”

“Let’s hope not.” Serana sighs when the Falmer she’s raised is knocked off the path, turning end over end as it plunges to the river below, but she doesn’t bother to raise another this time. “Let’s just go.”

Eres makes a face at her back as she marches off ahead of her, watching as Serana throws a particularly vicious bolt of lightning at an approaching group of Falmer—a bolt that hits one and then arcs to the two others, causing two of them to seize hard enough that they drop their weapons. They’re so high up that Eres doesn’t even hear them when they hit the water.

Eres nocks an arrow, then a second, and a third. In quick succession, she downs the two who’d been dumb enough to go without armor, and by the time they fall, Serana has already plowed through the third and is marching with purpose toward the next, well ahead of her. Serana kicks one off the ledge, grabs another by the front of his armor and tosses him off the side like a sack of potatoes—he arcs several meters off the side of the ledge before he even begins to fall, she’d thrown him so far.

It would have been impressive, had Eres not worried about how far she’s pushing it.

Eres draws her bow, trying to aim for any of the Falmer whose attention Serana has caught when white-hot pain sears through her left shoulder.

She drops to a knee, stunned, and she doesn’t realize what’s hit her until she looks down and sees the shaft of an arrow, the point still buried in her shoulder. It had only _just_ missed the armor covering her chest and shoulders, somehow managing to hit her in just the right way that it had slid right between the pauldron and chestpiece to bury itself in the soft part of her shoulder between her arm and collar, right where the joint met.

“Ow,” she says, belatedly, and she sees a shadow on the icy ground ahead of her.

Eres looks up, half expecting to see a Falmer standing there, ready to eviscerate her for killing so many of its brethren, but—something hot and red splatters across her face, and when she opens her eyes again, she sees the body drop, toppling off the side of the ledge—conspicuously missing a head.

A head that Serana holds in her hands, eyes burning with hate.

A wave of nausea crashes over her. Eres shuts her mouth tight to keep from being ill, even as she watches Serana toss the head over the edge, too, and turn her eyes back to Eres.

“Don’t do that again,” Eres manages, swallowing thickly. “Not in front of me, at least.”

“Sorry,” Serana says, and for what it’s worth, she does actually look a bit apologetic. She picks Eres up from under her good arm, draws her over to one of the now-unoccupied huts, and with a loud _shwick_ , a thick sheet of ice rises from the ground to seal the opening—with the two of them inside it, safe from whatever might come to attack them.

“This is my fault.” It’s not apology that Eres sees in her eyes, softer now that Eres is out of danger, but guilt. “I should have been paying closer attention to you.”

Eres moves to sit against the wall, as much as she’s not fond of the hard, almost crunchy chitin shells its made of. Her shoulder _throbs_ , and her left hand is starting to tingle. Probably not a good sign.

“I was the one standing in the open like an idiot,” Eres counters. She’d been too busy watching Serana to realize that one of them had spotted her. She was going to get herself killed at this rate, worrying about a damn vampire who was _much_ harder to kill than she was. “I think it’s poisoned.”

“What?”

“My arm feels numb.” Eres pulls her dagger from her belt, cuts at the part of her cloak caught by the arrow. When she struggles to do so without jostling the shaft, Serana takes the dagger from her and does it herself.

“Damn thing’s barbed,” Serana curses. “I’ll have to cut it out.”

“Oh, lovely.” Of course it would be. Fucking Falmer couldn’t even speak, but they could make functional weapons. Priorities.

The good thing about the poison is that it does numb her quite a bit. Perhaps she should have been worried that she couldn’t feel it when the dagger dug into her shoulder, but it’s strange—she know it’s _her_ shoulder, but somehow it feels like watching it happen to someone else. She can just feel the slightest pressure, the slightest twinge, but not nearly the level of pain she should have felt from a field surgery done with a _dagger_ , of all things.

Serana manages to remove the arrow—with surprising speed and technique—but they’ve not anything in the way of thread or needles for stitching up a wound.

Instead, Serana calls fire to her hand, and puts the point of the dagger into it. Her eyes seem to glow even stronger in the hut, somehow, despite the lighting from the fire right in front of her face.

Her blood—Eres is an idiot. Serana’s a vampire, and she’s bleeding all over the place in an enclosed space with her.

Eres very nearly offers it—she’s already bleeding, anyways, so it might as well go somewhere useful. Serana’s hungry, she knows, and if she’s going to be bleeding in front of her, at least Serana could get something out of it.

But then she remembers _him_ , and she keeps her mouth shut. Instead, she digs into her pack for one of the vials of antidote she keeps on her—it’s not really engineered for Falmer poison, having never encountered it often enough to bother carrying a specific antidote for it, but even a general anti-toxin should help stave off the effects until her body can repair itself.

She hopes. She hopes the Falmer’s poison is as shoddy as their general workmanship, or she might be in trouble.

She downs the antidote in one gulp, just moments before Serana presses the red-hot steel of the dagger into the wound to cauterize it.

“I—could have planned that better,” Eres manages through grit teeth, as the searing pain of it travels up her shoulder. “Feeling it, now.”

“Well, that’s good.” Serana says, then pauses. “Well, not _good_ , but—it’s good you can feel your arm, not the pain. You know what I mean.”

“I got it,” Eres almost laughs at her. Almost. She might’ve, if she weren’t in so much pain. Being shot with an arrow isn’t pleasant. Having a wound _branded_ shut isn’t the best feeling in the world, either. “You should—go hunt.”

Serana’s answering grimace actually makes Eres feel a little bad.

“Are they that bad?”

“Falmer?” Serana asks. Eres nods. “Worse, if you can imagine it. I’d take the dirtiest bandit over one of them.” She does look over her shoulder, though, and sighs.

“I just don’t think being in here with me while you’re hungry is the best idea.” Serana snaps her head back around to stare at her, and Eres adds hurriedly, “I meant it’s only going to make you hungrier. Not that I don’t trust you not to eat me.”

Still, Serana eyes her doubtfully. “I’ll take your word for it,” she says slowly, though she doesn’t sound convinced.

“How far do you think we are from the next shrine?”

Serana sighs. “I don’t want to think about it.” Disgustedly, she tosses Eres’ bloodied dagger to the ground. “It better not be much farther. I’m getting sick of these Falmer.”

“You and me both.” Eres scowls, glaring at the wall. “Gelebor better not have been lying. If Vyrthur doesn’t have the bow—”

“If Vyrthur doesn’t have the bow, I’m going to kill him myself,” Serana snaps, eyes flashing dangerously. “If we’ve gone through all this for nothing—”

“Let’s save the murder for later.” Eres finds she still can’t lift her left arm, even if she can feel it, but she does reach out with the other, squeezing Serana’s hand in hopes of settling her.

It does, strangely enough—the heat of the anger in her eyes fades, and she sends Eres an almost grateful look, as if she’s thankful to Eres for merely existing. Or perhaps just for managing to calm her temper before it burns her up inside.

Then, almost as quickly, irritation flashes across those eyes, and Serana sighs, and the look she gives Eres next is somewhere between annoyed and exasperated.

“What?” Eres asks, lost—what did she do now?

Serana merely shakes her head, letting out a disgusted sounding sigh. “The things I do for you,” she mutters, and in the next moment she is gone—sealing Eres into the hut alone as she leaves.

Eres does not worry about her—not about being out there alone, presumably hunting, as much as Serana had clearly not wanted to feed from one of them. She worries instead for other things, like her arm—like the battle they might have ahead of them, against Vyrthur and whatever Betrayed might fight alongside him, the upcoming fight with Harkon after that.

Eres has no shortage of things to worry about. She counts her blessings that Serana’s safety is not one of them, though a part of her feels guilty for not offering her own blood to her when she could have.

One day, Eres tells herself, one day she’ll give Serana the explanation she’s owed.


	17. Inner Sanctum

ACT III  
CHAPTER XVII  
“INNER SANCTUM”

They stay overnight in the little Falmer hut—not that Eres _wants_ to, particularly, but Serana would hear nothing of moving until Eres had rested, once she’d returned from her hunt. Serana had spent several minutes washing her mouth out with water from Eres’ canteen, like she might rinse the taste of Falmer from her tongue if she tried hard enough.

When Eres had suggested they could still keep going—she wasn’t bleeding anymore, and she could at least still use her sword, if not her bow—Serana would hear none of it, and even went so far as to threaten her with a sleeping draught if she tried to argue the matter further.

Defeated, Eres had reluctantly laid out her bedroll to sleep, in what might possibly have been the most unwelcoming place Eres had ever spent the night in.

In the morning, when Eres wakes, her shoulder still aches fiercely. Whatever feeling she had lost from the poison had returned in full force, reminding her of just how stupid she’d been. She would not be likely to forget where she’s standing in the middle of battle again any time soon.

There is a part of her that worries, even as they set off to continue their path through the glacier and the falmer dwellings raised inside it. Serana takes lead without her asking, downing many of the Falmer who come to them before Eres has a chance to reach them herself.

Though she appreciates Serana’s proactiveness, perhaps, Eres knows that soon, they will find the last wayshrine, and the Chantry of Auri-El beyond that, and how well will she be able to manage herself against Vyrthur and whatever minions he might have on his side? Without her bow, she will have to fight up close and personal, and though she’s not _terrible_ with a sword, she could certainly be better.

Dawnbreaker, in some ways, had been both a boon and a curse. On one hand, it had been indispensable in fighting against vampires and the undead, making quick work of them with the heat of Meridia’s fury within it. On the other hand, she had grown too accustomed to having Meridia’s aid in battle, if even only in the form of her enchanted blade.

Eres is not sure how well she might do against Vyrthur with only one arm and no enchanted sword to pick up the slack.

Serana, though, doesn’t seem overly concerned with the upcoming fight—she worries for Eres more than anything, putting herself in harm’s way just to ensure that Eres fights as little as possible on their way through the rest of the glacial paths. She raises Falmer, and even Chaurus to fight beside her, staying an easy ten meters in front of Eres at all times so that any enemies that might come would have to deal with her first before they even managed to get close to Eres.

Eres knows she should be grateful for this. Grateful that Serana is so capable on her own. Grateful that Serana cares enough to go out of her way to make things easier on her, knowing she’s injured.

All Eres can feel, though, is guilt—and inadequacy. If there’s anything that Eres hates in this world besides Molag Bal, it’s feeling like a burden on others. She’d felt like that all too often as a child. As she’d grown, she’d done everything in her power to avoid it.

Now that feeling sinks deep inside her, roiling beneath her skin, sitting heavy in her stomach.

Eres lasts an hour into the day before she can take it no longer.

With Serana ahead of her, prowling through the small little Falmer village-like complex they’ve come upon, ducking her head into huts and leaning around blind corners, Eres presses her right hand to her left shoulder, and the spell builds in her hand just as the migraine builds in her skull.

Healing oneself from a wound anything more than superficial is never a pleasant experience—it’s the feeling of flesh twisting and stretching and knitting together, far faster than it should. It’s the feeling of a crawling beneath her skin, like ants swarming, like the spell’s healing comes from little magic-spiders knitting her muscles and skin together with tiny little webs as they skitter all over.

Worse still, the migraine that pierces Eres skull is not the sharp white-hot icepick in one of her temples, like when she tries to use battle magic in the way that Serana does.

Healing magic feels like driving an axe into her skull, repeatedly, like her skull might split open if she doesn’t stop.

Eres drops the spell whenever Serana looks at her, pretending to only be gripping at the shoulder as if it pains her. It happens more often than she’d like, the slow ebbing of pain as the spell fades, then the skull-splitting resurgence when she takes it up again as they move, worse than she remembered it from just minutes before.

By the time that Eres manages to roll her shoulder without feeling anything popping or pulling within, there is red at the edges of Eres’ vision, and the reflection of the sun against the snow sends piercing stabs of pain behind her eyes and deep into her skull, only added to the feeling as though her brain is trying to break itself out of her skull. She can feel her own pulse in her ears, in her scalp, every thud and thump a throbbing point of pain added onto what is already there. The ache travels down into her neck and shoulders, tightening at her muscles until either side of her neck is as rock-hard as the stones of the wayshrine Eres can see in the distance.

While Serana’s back is turned, Eres tests the draw of her bow.

Her shoulder still aches, still feels a bit tight and strained when she draws back, but the pain is manageable. Compared to the pain between her ears, the twinge in her shoulder is more of a tickle than anything. This, she can manage—and Serana will not have to fight Vyrthur and his Betrayed alone.

Lagging behind Serana, Eres joins the woman at the last shrine several minutes after Serana had reached it. Serana watches her approach, frowning with her brows furrowed, watching Eres too closely for her comfort.

But Serana has been watching her since they’d left the hut, and Eres hopes it’s her usual paranoia rather than Serana having sensed that something was off.

“Finally,” Eres says to her, when she reaches her. Just to their right, not but a few dozen meters away, Eres can see the Chantry of Auriel rising up between the peaks of the mountains surrounding it. She has to squint just to look at it, the sun shining down without mercy, directly into her eyes. She’s certain that’s not an accident—being a Sun god, she wouldn’t be surprised if his followers had erected the Chantry in such a place on purpose.

“Finally,” Serana agrees, after a moment. She looks Eres up and down, once, suspicious, but she turns to fill the ewer all the same. “I thought there’d be more of them, honestly.”

Eres frowns. “Don’t speak too soon. There could be dozens inside the Chantry. That’s where they attacked first.”

“Maybe,” Serana holds the ewer in her arms, now, looking out towards the Chantry herself. “I’m guessing that’s the Chantry, then,” she says, needlessly. “I’ve never seen a building like that before.”

“Neither have I.” Eres keeps her eyes fixed upon the stone walls of the Chantry as they approach—it’s easier to look at the sand-colored stone than the blinding white of the snow, or into the bright light of the sun in the sky.

“Looks a lot like a temple.” Serana doesn’t sound pleased by that fact—like a temple is the last place she wants to walk into.

“Chantry, temple,” Eres shrugs. “It’s all the same to me.”

Serana favors her with an amused glance. “Should a Vigilant really be so nonchalant about places of worship?”

“It’s not Stendarr, so it probably won’t get me into too much trouble,” Eres jokes, sending her a small smile of her own.

Crossing the stone bridge into the Chantry courtyard, Eres looks up. And up. And up further. A bronze-carved statue of Auriel rises up from a raised pedestal, easily twenty feet tall, with its hands clutched around a bronze circle that’s peak erupts into the familiar symbolism of the sun-star of Auri-El’s realm of influence.

“By the blood…” Serana breathes, awed. “That’s definitely a statue of Auriel, but it’s using the older signs of his power. This temple must be _ancient_.”

“Older than you, even?”

Serana cuts her a short glare. “Yes, older than me. Believe it or not, most of the Gods were around before I was.”

“That _is_ hard to believe,” Eres says plainly, and grins when Serana’s glare cuts harder.

“Watch yourself,” Serana warns, her tone biting—but Eres can see the mirth in her eyes, hidden behind her false irritation. “That bow better be in here, or I swear…”

“If it’s not in here, I call the first swing at Gelebor,” Eres mutters, and she follows Serana up the steps to the side, to the platform raised behind it.

Upon the stone groundwork of that raised platform, Eres sees a familiar looking basin—only, unlike the other basins they had seen in the wayshrines, the one that stands before them now is conspicuously empty, with nothing but a small drain in its bowl.

Beneath that pedestal, small bronze half-piping runs through the floor like tiny aqueducts, leading to the engraving of Auri-El’s sun symbol carved into the ground and molded with bronze, right at the foot of the temple doors.

Just for the sake of it, Eres walks up to that door and pulls at the handle. It doesn’t so much as budge, even when she yanks at it.

“Pretty sure we have to put the water in first.” From behind her, Eres hears the sound of water pouring into the basin, and the bubbling of it draining through the bottom. Then, a soft trickling beneath her feet.

Eres moves out of the way as the water from the basin trickles down through the little aqueducts and into the molding of the sun just in front of the temple doors, watching as the sun relief begins to fill with water.

“I don’t see how that’s supposed to open the door.” Eres crosses her arms, frowning. The sun symbol isn’t even connected to the door anywhere she can see—it’s just _there_.

“Wait for it,” Serana comes to stand beside her, empty ewer slung across her shoulders.

“Why do you still have that?”

Serana shrugs. “Maybe we’ll need it inside. I feel better keeping it on me.” Then Serana smirks at her. “If nothing else, I can throw it at Gelebor’s head if he’s lying about that bow.”

_Well, that’s one way to kill a man_ , Eres thinks, eyeing the ewer. Heavy as that thing was, if Serana threw it at full strength, she just might knock that elf’s head clean off his shoulders. Gelebor had better hope Vyrthur had that damn bow, or he was going to regret it. 

Finally, the sun relief fills entirely, and then it begins to _glow_ beneath them, the water shining up at them with a soft greenish light. Eres hears a series of small clicking sounds, and then one very loud one.

When she looks up from the water again, the sun-shaped handle of the temple doors has turned, and split at the middle to open into two halves.

“I’d say that means it’s open,” Serana says, and tugs at one of them. The door swings open without protest—and Eres peers inside, reaching for her bow in the same movement, ignoring the twinge in her shoulder.

But nothing on the other side so much as twitches.

“What in the…” Serana takes a step inside, then another, calling light into her hands—likely for Eres’ benefit.

The inside of the temple as dark as pitch, ironic for a temple dedicated to the god of the sun, and within its stone corridors are the frozen corpses of Falmer—or, Eres thinks, peering closer at one of them—Snow Elves.

Snow Elves, frozen in place, as though something had arrested each of them in a single moment in time. Many of them are still standing, holding weapons or other items, reaching out, ducking away from something that is no longer there.

The further they walk inside, the more of the strange, frozen statues they find, each of them locked in place and unmoving.

“How long do you think they’ve been like this?”

Eres shakes her head, deeply unsettled.

“And I thought the Soul Cairn was creepy.”

Eres steps closer to one of the statues, trading her bow for her sword just in case—but the statue doesn’t move. Doesn’t so much as twitch, not like the gargoyles Serana’s mother had kept around the towers. These statues are entirely still, unmoving, unblinking, unknowing of the world around them.

But there is something about them that makes Eres feel dread curling low in her stomach. “Serana, look. Does that look like blood to you?”

Serana comes to her, peering closer through the ice at the Falmer frozen beneath it. Her eyes narrow. When she straightens, her lips have tightened to a thin line. “That’s definitely blood,” she says darkly, and her eyes cut through the darkness as she eyes the others more closely. “They’re _all_ like this,” she says, voice hushed as if someone might overhear them.

“I don’t suppose you know what the Falmer tended to eat.”

“If you’re asking me if they were cannibals,” Serana says slowly, eyes narrowed with suspicion, “I don’t think so. Something’s not right here. Be on your guard.”

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Eres mutters, but she and Serana move forward, picking their way through the ancient rooms and hallways, giving each of the statues a wide berth as they go.

No matter how much she dislikes it, no matter how much this whole temple and everything in it sets her on edge—they have to find Vyrthur. They haven’t come this far just to give up because the frozen statues made them uneasy.

Still—not all of them were frozen.

They cross into what appears to be some kind of dining hall, and Eres’ heart sinks. “Good Gods,” she breathes, staring at the skeletons littering the room, “what the hell happened here?”

“I’m guessing those are the ones who died before the rest of them got frozen.” Serana frowns, crouching near one of the tables. When she stands again a moment later, she looks defeated, more upset than Eres might have ever seen her. “There were children here…”

If Eres looks from where she stands, she can see just the hint of another skeleton hidden beneath the table, propped against the pillar that forms the table’s base. The skeleton is much smaller than the others, curled up where it sits like it had cowered there and been killed by whatever had killed the other two—one of whom looked to have either leapt or been dragged across the surface of the table.

In the bones, Eres can see a story—one that can be inferred, and one that she hates to think of. The other two, she figures, had been trying to protect the child, and had failed. The child had likely died soon after.

Eres turns away from that sight, shuddering.

“Let’s just keep going,” her voice sounds rougher than she’d meant it to, and she clears her throat. “Vyrthur has to be here somewhere.”

“…Right.” Serana hesitates near the table a moment longer before she falls into step beside her. “Could the Betrayed really have killed all these people like this? And what happened to the frozen ones?”

“I don’t know,” Eres steers them cautiously down the next corridor. They haven’t seen anything yet, but she can’t help but feel like something is waiting around every corner. “I don’t think the Falmer are even capable of wielding that kind of magic.”

“…Do you think Vyrthur did this?”

Eres’ teeth clench together. It takes her a moment to work past the anger that fills her before she can answer her. “I hope not,” she says at last, pushing the anger down—it’s only making her migraine worse.

Serana actually _growls_. “I’ll kill him,” she hisses, viciously. “Children,” she says heatedly, so low under her breath that Eres isn’t sure if she’s even meant to hear it. “ _Children_.”

“I know.”

They turn another corner, and snow crunches beneath her feet. Eres looks down, frowning, to see that the hall ahead of them has collapsed partially inward, allowing snow and ice to gather within the depths of the temple.

And in the distance, she can see what looks like a throne room.

And if she squints, behind the pillars of ice that surround it, she can see the figure of a man, seated casually upon that throne as if waiting. Waiting for Gelebor, possibly—or for them.

One way or another, Vyrthur was going to get what was coming to him.

Serana sets off down the hallway at a brisk march, Eres hot on her heels. Eres’ steps falter only when she sees what awaits them within that throne room—more of those frozen corpses, littered all around the open room, locked in place with weapons in hand. She slows just slightly as she passes them, eyes narrowed.

If Vyrthur’s the one who had frozen all these people, what were the chances that he could simply unfreeze them again?

Eres hears a chilling, mocking laugh, and the raspy, gravelly tones of a man’s voice shouting down at them from the throne ahead.

“Did you _really_ come here expecting to claim Auriel’s Bow?” The man taunts them, standing from his seat. His eyes land upon Eres, and he smirks. “You’ve done exactly as I predicted,” he says to her, as if he _knows_ her, “and brought your _fetching companion_ to me.”

Eres’s brow furrows, her eyes cutting to Serana, but Serana looks just as confused as she is.

Eres opens her mouth to respond, to ask him what the _hell_ he means by that—but then she hears something crack, something _burst_ , and something hard and cold smacks into her cheek. Flinching, Eres whirls, sword drawn—

And just as she had feared, Vyrthur had broken whatever spell he’d laid upon the frozen Falmer. Eres sees one burst from its frozen shell, then another, and another, each of the crackling explosions of ice as loud as the next.

Eres swears, and brings her sword down on the one nearest to her—the impact _rings_ up through her arms as the blade strikes the frozen flesh and _digs in_ , chiseling into it more like an ice pick than a sword, and she’s forced to yank it out and duck to avoid a returning swing from the Falmer she’d attacked.

Spinning, dancing out of the Falmer’s reach, Eres ducks back in, gripping her sword with both hands now, and arcs the blade across the Falmer’s brittle, frozen neck.

_Schwink_.

The head comes clean off, the body crumpling bonelessly half a second later, and the thing doesn’t even _bleed_.

“They’re brittle!” She yells to Serana, over the din of more of them bursting at the seams to join the fray. “A strong enough hit can break them apart!”

“Just what I wanted to hear!” Serana shouts back, sounding genuinely a bit too excited about it, and a moment later Eres hears a loud crash—followed by the sound of several cracks and the sounds of ice shattering behind her.

Eres blocks the axe of a Falmer ahead of her, slices clean through the damn thing’s arm, and takes its head just as easily as she had the one just before him. She glances over her shoulder in the breath between attacks and nearly stumbles—she can see a giant pillar of ice, twice as big as she is, half-embedded into the wall, the littered remains of what might have been half a dozen shattered, frozen falmer beneath it.

_“No!”_ Vyrthur bellows, and curses—and Eres hears more of that bursting, that crackling splinter of frozen shell as more of the frozen Falmer return to life around them.

“For fuck’s sake,” Eres mutters. She drops another, and, dropping her sword, snatches up the Warhammer it had been wielding.

Eres brandishes it with both hands, swinging with her entire weight behind it—she’s not certain she could have managed it one-handed at all, but the feeling of a Falmer shattering beneath a single blow is worth how awkward and unwieldy it feels to use such a large weapon.

A sword just wasn’t cutting it.

A mallet, on the other hand—that was perfect for smashing heads in. Or in this case, smashing ice to pieces all around her.

“An impressive display! But a wasted effort. You’ve done nothing but delay your own deaths!”

“Watch out!” Serana calls, from halfway across the room, just as Eres feels the floor _tremble_. “He’s pulling down the ceiling!”

Eres snaps her head back to look up. The ceiling breaks apart above her, debris crashing down onto Falmer and the floor alike and—

“ _Eres!”_

Eres dives, but the falling ceiling is too large and too fast for her to dodge entirely. She braces herself for the impact, waiting to feel its crushing weight slam down upon her body, shattering her bones like twigs—

But nothing comes.

“Come on,” Serana says, from somewhere above her.

Eres opens her eyes, to find the woman crouching over her, the sun blazing at her back, enveloping her in an almost ethereal glow of white at her edges. She looks like a Goddess, come to offer her deliverance from evil.

“Come on, Eres,” Serana repeats, and pulls her to her feet. “We can do this, I know we can. He’s run off to the balcony—like hell I’m going to let him kill himself after all this.”

Eres nods belatedly, watching as Serana dashes off ahead of her. As she follows behind, Eres glances back—back at the ceiling rubble that had nearly crushed her.

She hadn’t avoided it. She _knows_ she hadn’t. Serana must have saved her somehow. Again. How many times has Serana saved her life at this point? How much does Eres owe her, now? Several of her lifetimes? A thousand?

“Enough, Vyrthur!” Serana spits out as they reach him, yanking him by the collar to hold him in place before he can get the brilliant idea of jumping off the side of the chantry balcony. “Give us the bow!”

“How _dare_ you,” Vyrthur, even while half-crouched and clutching painfully at his shoulder, somehow manages to look down upon Serana even still, as if she were no more than shit beneath his boot. “I was the Arch-Curate of Auri-El, _girl_.” Eres’ blood boils. “I had the ears of a _god_.”

“Until the Betrayed corrupted you—Yes, yes, we’ve heard this sad story,” Serana drawls, uncaringly.

Vyrthur scoffs at her. “Gelebor and his kind are easily manipulated fools. As are _you_ ,” he spits out. “Look into my eyes, Serana. You tell me what I am.”

Vyrthur doesn’t deserve to say her name. Doesn’t even deserve to know it. It sounds _wrong_ on his tongue. He speaks her name as if he knows her, as if they’re not total strangers, as if they’re not on opposite sides—and the way Serana looks at him, searchingly, frown deepening—Eres hate it all.

She hates even more the reddish hue of his eyes.

“You…You’re a vampire…” Serana shakes her head disbelievingly, reeling away from him. “Auriel should have protected you.”

Vyrthur’s face morphs into an ugly scowl. “The moment I was infected by one of my own Initiates, Auri-El turned his back on me! I swore I’d have my revenge, no matter the cost!”

Serana stares at him for a moment, unblinkingly. Then, slowly, she summons up her driest voice as she says, “You want to take revenge…on a god.”

Serana says it like it’s the stupidest plan she’s ever heard. In all truth, it’s the stupidest plan _Eres_ has ever heard. Revenge on a God? Exactly how the hell did Vyrthur think that was going to work out? Had he spent so long in this derelict temple that he’d completely lost what sanity he had left?

“Auri-El himself may have been beyond my reach, but his influence on this realm _wasn’t_.” His thin, white lips stretch into a dark smile. “All I needed was the blood of a vampire and his own bow.”

“The blood of a vampire and Auriel’s Bow…” Serana’s brows meet at the same time Eres comes to realize it herself. “It was you? You’re the one who created that prophecy?”

“ _You_ , my dear Serana,” he coos, “were the final ingredient. All I needed was the blood of a pure vampire—a Daughter of Coldharbour.”

Eres is half to snapping at him, demanding answers, but by the time she’s thought of the words to swear at him, Serana has snatched the man by his collar and lifted him clean into the air like he’s little more than a petulant child.

“All this time.” Serana’s voice comes out tightly controlled, too tightly, like a braided cord pulled to the point of snapping apart. “ _All this time_ , and it was you. You were just waiting for someone with my blood to come along.”

Vyrthur sneers down at her.

Serana sneers right back. “Too bad for you. I intend on keeping _mine._ Let’s see if _your_ blood has any power to it.”

Serana shoves the man to the ground, his armor clanking loudly against the stone, and she doesn’t even pull her dagger. She doesn’t draw her hands up, or calls spells to her hands.

She doesn’t need to, because Eres is already there with her own blade, a foot on Vyrthur’s chest—looking down at a man in a way that’s all too familiar.

She’s executed a man just like this before.

Vyrthur deserves it just as much as _he_ had.

But Eres doesn’t bother reciting the oath this time. With Altano, it had been _personal_. Vyrthur was just a man with a deathwish, a doomsday prophecy made of his own volition—and that prophecy had hung over almost the entirety of Serana’s undead life.

Eres pauses, the point of her blade at his neck. A point of blood appears at the tip, dark and sluggish in the way that vampires’ blood always is.

This isn’t her judgment to make. Not her sentence to carry out.

“Serana,” she says, turning to look at her. She steps off Vyrthur’s chest, but presses her blade just a little further into his skin when he tries to move. “This should be yours.”

Serana watches her for a moment, her gaze unreadable. Then she nods, silently, and steps forward to take the blade from her hands.

It strikes Eres, then, unbidden, that she’s never actually seen Serana hold a real sword. A dagger, yes. But never a sword. She looks—regal with it, somehow. Like it belongs in her hand. Like she’d always been meant to wield one. Even when she stands over a man she plans to execute in cold blood—literally.

“It would be my _pleasure_ ,” Serana purrs, and Eres hears the sudden _tink_ of metal on stone, and then a wet gurgling choke, a beat later.

Then, _shlick—_ Serana flicks the blade outward, first to one side, and then across to the other, and she severs Vyrthur’s head from his body in an almost surgically clean slice.

“Good riddance.”

The ground rumbles.

Eres turns, frowning, praying that they’ve nothing else to deal with on this day—but all she sees is the familiar sight of a dome rising behind them, a wayshrine not unlike those they had found on the path leading to the chantry. She hadn’t even realized there was one inside.

“Guess we have an easier way out, now,” Serana says quietly, beside her.

Eres turns to her, but Serana’s eyes are upon the sluggishly bleeding corpse of Vyrthur, a distant look in her eyes. She seems miles away, lost in thought.

“Are you alright?”

Serana sighs. “I’ll be fine, it’s just—”

“So,” Gelebor’s voice reaches them from the stairs, and Serana’s mouth shuts with an audible click, the look in her eyes turning guarded as the man approaches them. Eres bites back a sigh—Serana _needs_ to talk about this. She isn’t fine, by any stretch of the definition. “The deed is done, I see.”

“So it is,” Eres says tersely, trying not to look openly irritated at him. Couldn’t he have waited for them to come downstairs?

Gelebor’s eyes shift to the corpse of his brother, and he seems entirely unbothered by the state of it. He must have made his peace with his brother’s death long before now.

“The restoration of this wayshrine—it would not have been restored had you not killed him and released him from the Corruption of the Betrayed.”

Eres exchanges a glance with Serana, frowning. “It wasn’t the Betrayed that did this.”

Gelebor’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“The Betrayed weren’t to blame. Vyrthur was the one controlling _them_ , not the other way around. He was a vampire.”

Gelebor’s eyes flick to Serana, then to Gelebor’s body. After a moment, he nods. “I see,” he says slowly. “That would explain much.”

Eres would have expected the man to be dismayed by the news that his brother had been a vampire, that he had been wrong about what had happened at the Chantry. But, strangely, Gelebor looks—settled, somehow. Oddly more at peace than he had been previously.

“Deep inside,” Gelebor admits, “it brings me joy that the Betrayed weren’t to blame for what happened here.”

“Why?” Eres asks.

“Because that means there is still hope that they might one day shed their hatred and learn to believe in Auri-El once again. Perhaps…” Gelebor looks away from Vyrthur at last. “Perhaps, some day in the future, Auri-El’s light will reach them again—and I will not be the last of my kind.”

Eres swallows thickly—in a strange way, she can relate to the way that Gelebor feels, being the last of a dying race. Not that the Bosmer are in any danger of becoming extinct or mutating the way the Snow Elves had, but Eres had about as much contact with that aspect of her culture as if they were. The thought of being the last of her kind, either figuratively or literally, affects her more than she thought it would.

“Thank you,” Gelebor sends both of them a small, almost wistful smile. “It has been a long time since I felt that way, and it was long overdue. You risked everything to retrieve the Bow, and in turn, you’ve restored the Chantry—a task even I was not sure you would complete.”

Serana catches Eres’ eyes, and does a very quick eye roll at that. They’d guessed as much on the way that Gelebor couldn’t have been sure they would succeed, if he himself had not.

“I can think of no champion more deserving than you to wield it.” Gelebor beckons them, leading them downstairs to the wayshrine below, and on the pedestal within where every other wayshrine had housed a basin, there was instead a finely crafted bow, in the same sculpted bronze that every other fixture of Auri-El had been made for—but its surface was softly reflective, as though it shone from within.

“If there’s anything else you need in the future—do not hesitate to call upon me. I will gladly lend my aid if I am able.”

Then Gelebor bids them both a short farewell with a bow of his head, and he turns to walk back up the stairs. Eres imagines he must plan to bury the body of his brother—or whatever it was that Snow Elves did with their dead.

In his absence, Eres enters the wayshrine herself, grabs the bow, and places it over her shoulders.

If she had expected some fanfare, or some divine feeling to overcome her, she would have been disappointed. There is no buzzing beneath her skin, no feeling of divine favor, no resonant voice of the God himself in her ears—just the bow, surprisingly light on her shoulders, and the sun-bright arrows in the quiver that had been laid beside it.

“It’s…not as shiny as I was expecting.” Serana admits, looking at it dubiously. “This seems almost anticlimactic. Even that blade of yours is brighter.”

“Maybe Meridia’s a bit more dramatic than Auriel,” Eres shrugs. She almost expects to hear the Prince snap at her in her mind, huffing for the comparison, but of course, Meridia could probably care less how Eres feels about her as long as she keeps using Dawnbreaker as she does.

“Maybe,” Serana says, but she still looks a bit doubtful. “Still, it’s beautiful.”

Eres nods, quiet. “Are you ready? To face your father?”

Serana averts her eyes, sighing. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose. It’s time we faced him, now. If we don’t, he’ll just chase us down for the rest of our lives.”

“We’ll probably have to kill him.” It’s not the first time they’ve discussed this, but still—Eres feels it worth mentioning. “Are you okay with that?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’m not going to say it’s _easy_ , but,” Serana shrugs helplessly, “I don’t really think we have much of a choice. We have to stop him, and my father’s not the kind of man to just… give up because we’ve bested him. He won’t stop until he _can’t_ fight any longer. We have to end this.”

Eres nods. “Together, then,” she tells her. “I won’t let you face him down alone. I’ll be with you, the whole time.”

Serana sends her a thin smile. “I appreciate that. But,” she says, her expression shifting into something a bit lighter, “as amazing as you are as a partner and all—if we head back there now with just the two of us, we’re going to be knee deep in all my father’s little friends. We need to head back to Isran and come up with a proper assault plan. I’m sure he’ll lend us a sword or two, now that we’ve got the bow.”

“I’m sure he will.” He’d fucking better. Eres might kill him herself if he didn’t. Or maybe just stab him a few good times to prove a point, just so he’d learn from it for the future.

“So.”

“So,” Eres repeats, nodding. “Back to the fort, then. And then—”

Bitterly, Serana mutters, “Home, sweet home.”


	18. Kindred Judgment

ACT III  
CHAPTER XVIII  
“KINDRED JUDGMENT”

Fort Dawnguard has not changed since the last time Eres had seen it. The walls are still as strong and high as they ever were. The gate remains closed to them until Celann opens it for them, now recovered from his injuries just before they’d left, when the vampires had been bold enough to attack the fort in broad daylight.

This time, the approach to the keep within is not peppered with the sights of the injured and weary, nor with the telltale pyres that the Dawnguard made sure to dispose of vampires with, not keen on taking any chances.

For all intents and purposes, Fort Dawnguard looks almost idyllic; far too serene for the news they will bring, and the battle that is sure to come. Eres speaks nothing of it to any they see, even when they approach to greet her. Isran should know first—he will call the rest of the Dawnguard to order. She hopes.

Serana, since leaving Darkfall Cave, has been unusually quiet; contemplative. Eres had asked after her once or twice on their journey eastward back to the fort. The first time, Serana had assured her. The second, Serana had deflected in no uncertain terms:

“Leave me alone for now, Eres. We can talk about it after this is all over. Not now.”

And so Eres had left Serana to her thoughts, trusting that the woman would open up when she wanted to, and no sooner. Serana needs space to deal with what she must do, and Eres will not keep her from that. Even if leaving her to her own devices does worry her, she cannot force her to speak when she wants to be silent.

Eres does not see Isran upon the balcony, his usual haunt. She does not see him in the dining hall, or training range, or even in his quarters. Eres searches nearly the entire fort until she finds Sorine, who very casually points above her head.

“He’s on the wall,” Sorine says. “Last I checked.”

And so Eres turns, Serana at her heels, and the two of them make their way up the set of stairs that will lead to the battlements above.

Eres finds Isran there, standing with his hands braced upon the parapets, gazing out at his fortress, a deep frown upon his face. A frown that, for once, disappears when he turns to them—and sees the bow upon Eres’ shoulders.

“The bow,” he breathes, eyes wide. “Auriel’s Bow. You actually managed to find it.”

Eres nods. “Arrows, as well,” she tells him. “I’ve studied the enchantments on them, as well as I could.” She should have taken the time to speak with Gelebor about them, see if maybe there was some way to make more of them. The matter had slipped her mind entirely, so focused upon what came next.

Eres pulls one of the sun-bright arrows from her quiver, mixed in with the others, its shaft so bright that it nearly hurts to look at it. “I won’t be able to replicate it perfectly, but Sorine might be able to come up with something similar. It seems to harness solar power, concentrates it within the shaft itself. If we can manage to outfit everyone with these, the assault will be much easier.”

She’s made the assumption that the Dawnguard will be joining them to confront Harkon, perhaps too presumptuous of her, but Isran merely nods his agreement.

“If not, we can always use silver.” Isran crosses his arms over his chest. “And you,” he says, looking at Serana with hard eyes, “are you going to be able to stand against your own family?”

“It’s just my father,” Serana answers tightly, as if ‘father’ is not included in her definition of family. “And his people.” As if Serana had not likely grown up with most of them. As if none of them mattered at all. “I’m coming, whether you like it or not.”

Isran doesn’t look even remotely surprised. “I thought so.” He nods at her, resolute. “That’s one more we can count on. I don’t suppose you’d know just how many men your father has at his disposal.”

Bracing her hands on her hips, Serana sighs, shaking her head. “It’s been millennia since I lived there, really. Even when I went back at the start of all this, I was only there a few days before leaving. I didn’t think to get a headcount at the time, but we should prepare for the worst. Dozens, maybe. Not counting the hounds.” After a beat, she adds, “Or the gargoyles.”

Eres frowns. “I thought the gargoyles were your mother’s?”

“Oh, they are,” Serana says, waving a hand dismissively. “But she created them to protect the castle. As soon as the fight breaks out, they’re going to wake up. I would be more surprised if they didn’t.”

“Better to assume that they will,” Isran grumbles, his frown deepening. “By ‘dozens’, you mean…?”

“Thirty? Forty?” Serana tries, uncertain. “I don’t really know. A lot of them will be fodder—his most trusted ‘friends’, if you can call them that, are stronger. Older. Turned around the same time we were. We can count on at least those five being a problem. They’ll be much harder to take down than any of the others, with a lot more tricks up their sleeves.”

“And the others?”

“Minions, essentially—lesser vampires, hoping to get into my father’s good graces. Those five are the only pure ones, like myself,” Serana tells him. “The rest will be hybrids, similar to those you might encounter anywhere else in Skyrim. Then there’s the thralls, and the hounds.”

“The hounds have a horrific bite,” Eres tells him. “I’m not sure if they brought any when they attacked you last, but try not to get bitten by them—it’s like it freezes your blood. They should be killed at a distance, if possible.”

“Our crossbows should do nicely for them,” Isran’s smile is without warmth. “We have our own hounds besides, down below, and Gunmar’s armored trolls. We’re not completely helpless.”

“The thralls should be easy,” Serana says. “They’re just mindless drones—not even vampires. They’re just regular mortals, bewitched by them for an easy meal.” Her face twists, and she looks away. “If we could avoid killing them, I’d prefer it, but…”

“So they’re not _really_ on your father’s side—just brainwashed.”

“Something like that, yes.” Serana runs a hand through her hair. Somehow, despite her vampiric nature and the fact that she didn’t need to sleep, she looked tired. Not hungry, just—tired.

“Once their masters are killed, they should return to their normal selves. If we can spare them, they could lead normal lives again.”

Isran frowns. “There’s no telling if we’ll be able to manage that, but I’ll make a note of it. We’ll spare who we can, but I’m not going to tell my men to take it easy. Their safety comes first.”

“I understand that.” Serana nods, but despite Isran’s words, she looks grateful. Just the agreement that Isran _might_ be able to spare them seemed to have assured her. Again, Serana’s capacity for empathy surprises her. Eres can not say she would have thought to spare the thralls, had Serana not mentioned it herself.

“As for you,” Isran turns to Eres. “I believe you should be the one to wield the bow.”

Eres had expected that. To be honest, she isn’t sure if she’d have let anyone else wield it even if he’d suggested someone else. The bow might not have been a Daedric artifact, but it could still be incredibly dangerous if it got into the wrong hands. She feels better knowing that she will be the only one to use it.

“And when that doesn’t work,” Isran’s eyes move just over her shoulder, “you always have that sword of yours.”

Eres nods. She swears she can feel the thing vibrate with anticipation. Meridia will be pleased, she is sure.

But Serana does not look happy.

“I don’t like the idea of you fighting my father up close, Eres. He could rip you apart with his bare hands—and he’s much faster than you are.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Eres assures her. “That’s what the bow is for. And these,” she raises the sun-bright arrow again, and Serana winces as though the mere sight of it pains her. Eres replaces it in her quiver for the time being. “I won’t let him get close.”

But Serana still doesn’t look assured by that.

“You may not have a choice,” she mutters. “He’s going to go after you.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “I know—he’ll want the bow.”

“Not just that.” Serana shakes her head, scowling. “He’ll come for you to get to _me_ ,” she says, and Eres blinks. “You refused his gift—that’s already reason enough for him to be angry with you. Then I left him, and his men find me with you. I’m sure by now they’ve reported that we’ve been together this whole time. My father will know that we’re friends, now, and if he feels like he’s going to lose…”

Serana trails off, then, but her meaning is clear.

If Harkon feels the tides turning, he may come for Eres—as leverage against Serana. If he could grab Eres, hold her life in his hands, then Serana may cave to his desires. Looking at Serana, Eres knows, too, that the plan would work. Serana wouldn’t allow Harkon to kill her, she’s certain of that.

“We’ll have a guard on you at all times,” Isran’s voice is little more than a growl. “Make sure he can’t get to you without going through _us_ first.”

Eres hates the idea of that, but she knows a losing battle when she sees one. She decides not to bother arguing against it—she knows neither of them will budge on it, just from looking at their faces.

“The real question is, if your father is as strong as you make him out to be, how are any of us going to be able to help you fight him?” She asks Serana. “If he can move even half as fast as you can, none of us will be able to touch him.”

“I actually have an idea for that,” Serana says, looking suddenly a bit less morose. There’s even a flash of excitement in her eyes. “Do you remember how you took down Durnehviir?”

Eres remembers. “Hardly going to forget it. I don’t think Durnehviir’s going to fit in the castle.”

Serana smacks her arm. “Not him. I meant the rune you used—the one with the chains. Do you have anything like that that might work on a smaller scale? Perhaps a spell that slows someone instead of binding them?”

Eres puts a hand to her chin, trying to remember her old lessons.

She’d remembered the binding rune because she’d spent so much damn time staring at it that she’d never forgotten it. While she knows Niu had certainly taught her others, it had been so long since she’d had to use any of them that even if she could recall one that might function in that way, she would need a miracle to be able to remember the specific sigils, the perimeter facets, the inscriptions—there was far too much that could go wrong if she guessed at it.

But runes—and the magic they invoked—were near limitless. If she could find a tome or grimoire, she could build one of her own design to achieve the effect they needed.

The problem, of course, was that runes like the one she had used on Durnehviir—considered _contact_ runes for their necessity to be placed and then come into physical contact with their target—required them to be drawn in the specific area the effect was desired. And, even worse, they could not be targeted to a specific individual—even if she managed to place a rune as large as the entirety of the Castle Volkihar, anyone who stepped foot inside the perimeter of the runic circle would be affected by its influence.

Eres shakes her head at last.

“I could come up with one— _maybe_ ,” she adds, when Serana looks a bit too happy to hear that, “but with the way runes like those work, I would have to draw them in the middle of a battle, and hope that Harkon’s the one to step in them. It’s just not feasible.”

“Isn’t there some way you could do a transfer of power?” Serana asks. “With a scroll—bind the rune there, and then activate it in the castle. You could make multiple copies, and anyone with enough mana to activate it could help place the traps around the castle.”

Sorine would be able to do that, Eres was sure, and perhaps a few others who had magic—but the process of inscribing the runes to a scroll and then testing them to ensure they could be transferred in such a way would take days, if not weeks.

“We’ll have to find another way.” She wishes they had the time, she does. “It would take too long to come up with something like that, and we don’t know how long Harkon’s just going to sit waiting for us.”

“I don’t suppose you can think of any alternatives,” Isran remarks dryly. “I don’t like the idea of facing a man who can’t be pinned down.”

Eres tugs at her hair, wracking her brain.

“Maybe another enchantment on the arrows?” But if that was the case, the effect wouldn’t last nearly as long—she would have to hit him before he’d managed to see her, and then _keep_ hitting him so that he didn’t regain his speed. There was no guarantee she’d manage it. She’s never fought Harkon before, never fought a vampire _lord_ , at that. She’s not sure what she can expect going in there. “If I can hit him, I may be able to slow him down for a time. But it won’t last very long.”

“Then you keep hitting him,” Isran says, repeating her own thoughts back to her. “And,” he looks at Serana with an oddly measuring look in his eyes. “Perhaps you can do a demonstration.”

Serana’s brows raise high on her forehead. “A demonstration of what exactly?”

“None of these people have ever fought a pure-blooded vampire before. You’re one of them—your father’s daughter. I imagine your abilities must not be too far removed from his own. If you can show us what you’re capable of, we may better know what to expect when we go against him.”

The idea is a sound one, but when Eres looks at Serana, the woman looks anything but willing to do so.

“I’m not as powerful as my father,” Serana says slowly. The distaste on her face is plain. “He’s capable of things I’m not. My mother and I were always more similar—he’s not able to raise the dead, for example—thankfully. I can. So could my mother, but...”

Eres shakes her head. “Valerica’s already said she won’t risk it. That would double his chances of getting his hands on the blood he needs.” Serana nods, already having come to the same conclusion.

“What else can he do, then? Give us something to go on, here.” Isran looks as frustrated as Eres feels.

Serana lets out a long sigh. “The usual—speed, strength. Flight, I suppose, if he decides to go full pure-blood on you.”

“Which means—”

“It’s an alternate form,” Eres supplies, and she catches Serana’s surprised glance out of the corner of her eye. _Yes_ , she thinks, _I know about that._ She’s a Vigilant—she _has_ to know about these things. “Mostly still humanoid, but with the wings of a bat, and talons. They can disperse their physical forms into mist and reform a short distance away. Harkon may be able to do more than that.”

“That’s…about right, actually,” Serana seems halfway between stunned and impressed. She looks at Eres like she’s meeting her for the first time all over again. “My father is also an accomplished mage—he’s likely to rely on vampiric spells more than melee.”

“That’s what we needed to know,” Isran nods, pleased. “Good. We know what we’re dealing with.”

And what they’re dealing with is—a _lot_. Even after coming this far, after all this time, Eres wonders if they’re ready. If they’re really prepared to go through with this—to fight Harkon on his home ground. They will be at a disadvantage as the assaulting force, on top of all the other disadvantages they have just from being mortals. With the exception of Serana, that is.

“How many men do we have?” Eres asks.

“Fifty, give or take a few here or there.” Eres frowns—she had expected more. “There’s a couple dozen out in the fields, but they won’t make it back in time. The rest aren’t suited for combat.”

That made sense, but…

“I’ve been thinking…” Isran’s mouth twists, and he shifts uncomfortably in place. “We’ll have to head through Whiterun on our way up to Castle Volkihar, correct?” Eres nods. “The Companions have their base there.”

“The Companions?” Eres frowns. “I don’t think this is a fight we can bring hired muscle into.” It wouldn’t feel right to send mercenaries into a fray like this, no matter how well they paid them.

Isran makes a face. “That’s the thing—I’ve heard rumor for decades that the Companions aren’t what they seem.” He looks shrewdly at Serana. “The senior members—they’re rumored to be werewolves. The Vigilants in Skyrim have turned a blind eye to them for centuries.”

Eres glances at Serana, herself, hating that the idea actually doesn’t sound terrible.

The Companions were already powerful, honorable warriors. She’d heard of them even back when she’d been a child, growing up in Cyrodiil a whole country away. That they could be werewolves, also, the sworn natural enemies of vampires—if the rumors were true, they would probably be all too happy to assist them in taking down Harkon and his men.

But Serana looks uncertain. “I don’t think the Companions are going to care about the difference between me and my father. They might just decide to kill me, too.” Her mouth twists into a grimace. “Also don’t like the idea of fighting alongside a bunch of mutts, anyhow.”

Like cats and dogs, they were.

“They may be what could turn the tides in our favor,” Isran argues. “It can’t hurt to ask them on our way through. If they refuse to take you into consideration, then we’ll be on our way without them. If they do, however,” Isran sighs. “We could use the numbers. And the power they’d bring.”

Eres has seen a werewolf in action only once. She has not wanted to see it again since. Hircine, though—he hadn’t been the most terrible Prince she could have met, even if they’d only interacted briefly regarding poor Sinding. She isn’t sure if she could call him _good_ , necessarily, but at least he wasn’t outwardly evil. Perhaps the same could be said of his followers, if the Companions were truly his charges.

“I’m surprised you’re so willing to work alongside werewolves to begin with.” Serana says smartly. “It took you weeks to stop threatening to kill me every time we passed in the halls.”

Isran sighs again, more loudly. “I wouldn’t if I had any choice in the matter. But…I have come to realize recently that not everyone can be judged upon their brethren.” He eyes first Serana, and then Eres. “I am no more fond of werewolves than I am of vampires. But when there is a choice between two evils…”

“Choose the lesser one,” Eres murmurs. “Except I’ve heard werewolves eat the people they attack.”

“Werewolf attacks here in Skyrim are rare,” Isran says simply. “I believe the Companions keeps them in check—and that’s why the Vigilants never routed them.”

“And the Silver Hand?” Eres asks.

Isran scoffs. “The Silver Hand are worse than I am—little more than bandits with a fancy name. I wouldn’t trust them to do much as water my garden, if I had one.” Eres snorts at that, amused by the imagery of a man like Isran doing something so soft as tending a garden.

“The Companions, though…” He looks at Serana again, and it strikes Eres with some astonishment that he’s actually checking for her approval of the idea.

Isran cares enough about Serana, in his own way, that he doesn’t wish to bring the Companions in unless she agrees to it. Suddenly, Eres sees Isran in an entirely different light. Perhaps he is kinder a man than she ever gave him credit for.

Serana considers it for a long moment. Then she shakes her head, unyielding. “I still don’t like the idea of involving them. Not when there’s so much at stake.”

“Got any better ideas?” Isran’s expression sours. “I don’t like it, either, but we _need_ something more than what we’ve got, or we might just be walking into our own funerals.”

“What about the College?” Eres asks, and both of them turn to stare at her. “We don’t need more warriors—we have enough of those. We need mages. People who can help to disable Harkon, or at least slow him down. The College is our best bet. If we can get them to help us—”

“ _If_ ,” Serana repeats. “That’s a pretty big ‘if’. Mages aren’t known for just selflessly throwing themselves into battles that have nothing to do with them. They won’t help us for nothing.”

Eres eyes the scrolls upon Serana’s back. “They won’t have to help us for nothing.” Serana’s brow furrows. “We have three Elder Scrolls. We can offer them up in exchange for their help.”

Serana’s lips pull down into a frown. “I don’t know how I feel about _that_ either, to be honest.”

“What better option do we have?” Eres argues. “Those scrolls—we already know what’s in them. We don’t need them anymore. What else are we going to do with them?”

“Keep them safe.” Serana states plainly. “I don’t know if I trust them with them.”

“Who else _can_ we trust with them, if not for the very people who know exactly how dangerous they are?” Eres understands how Serana feels, she does—the prophecy contained in those Scrolls is a direct danger to Serana and her mother, specifically, but there’s no better place to house them than the College. Serana couldn’t expect to carry them around on her back forever, could she?

“The mages would be indispensable,” Isran adds. “With their help, we just might be able to turn the tides in our favor. Without them, we may not win this battle.”

Serana is silent for a long moment, looking between the two of them. When she finally sighs, Eres knows from the look on her face that she _still_ doesn’t like it.

“Fine,” Serana says tersely, “but you realize it’s going to take us a lot longer to get to my father when we have to take a detour all the way up to Winterhold.” 

“That’s why the two of you will go. The rest of the Dawnguard will start the march towards the Castle. We’ll raise our camp on the northern shore and wait for you and the mages to join us.”

“ _If_ the mages join us,” Serana repeats. “There’s no guarantee these scrolls will be enough to convince them.”

“If three Elder Scrolls isn’t enough, I don’t know what is.” Eres, too, eyes the scrolls with trepidation. She hopes the College is as upstanding as she thinks it is. She doesn’t want to imagine what might happen if someone there got a hold of the scrolls and started this whole prophecy nonsense all over again once Harkon was finished with. “Serana and I will head out to Winterhold, then, and meet you at the forward camp.”

“Good.” Isran looks between the both of them, then nods. “It appears we have a plan, then. Eres, before you leave—you take those arrows to Sorine, get her started on replicating that enchantment. See if she can’t find a way to manage it on the crossbow bolts, too. You,” he looks at Serana, and something shifts on his face, something that Eres can’t quite recall having seen on him before. It looks suspiciously like sympathy.

“You should take some time to yourself to prepare, if you can.” Isran suggests, his voice notably softer than Eres can ever remember hearing it. “I know we don’t have much time for it. But this will be difficult for you, I’m sure.”

Serana stares at him. “I—I’ll do that,” she says, after a moment. Eres sees the muted shock upon her face, and can’t say she doesn’t feel the same. She hadn’t thought Isran would ever have been so gentle to a vampire, even if it _was_ Serana. “Thank you, Isran.”

Isran nods. “I’ll go and rally the men, make our final preparations for the road. The next time we meet, it will be on the battlefield.”

Isran leaves them, then, marching towards the stairs at a brisk pace. He disappears down the dark stairwell, and the two of them are left alone upon the battlements. In his wake, Eres looks at Serana— _really_ looks at her.

“I’m fine,” Serana says, before she can even ask. “You worry about getting those arrows ready. I’ll…” Serana sighs. “I’ll go hunt or something. I need something to do.”

Eres nods. She doesn’t worry about Serana, not in that way—she knows that Serana won’t be hunting innocents. “You can meet me up in Windhelm, if you want to take some time.”

“I doubt it’ll take that long,” Serana says, sending her a tiny little smirk. Eres might have been glad to see it, had it reached her eyes at all. As it was, it feels a little like Serana is putting on a mask.

Eres hesitates a moment.

Goodbyes have never really been a thing for her—not the kind of longwinded, emotional goodbyes some people were known for, anyways. Eres had always found them awkward. Perhaps it was how many times she had to watch people walk out of her life; perhaps she was so used to people leaving unannounced that a goodbye felt strangely formal, uncomfortably final.

But she didn’t feel right just letting Serana leave without saying anything. Not now.

So Eres, for the first time in what could have been a decade—maybe longer—reaches for Serana, wraps her arms around the other woman’s shoulders in what she hopes is a welcome embrace.

“I’m sorry, about this,” Eres murmurs to her. “I’m here for you, when you need me.” Eres almost pulls away, then, but Serana’s arms wrap around her waist, and tighten.

“Thank you.” Serana’s voice is thick with emotion, and Eres hears her inhale shakily next to her ear. She squeezes Eres a little tighter—not quite enough to be painful, but close. “I can’t talk about it now. But later—after this is all over.”

Eres nods into her shoulder before she pulls away. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she notes that Serana doesn’t quite release her, even when Eres does, but that her hands remain loosely upon Eres’ hips, holding her in place. Standing so close to Serana, she has to tilt her head back to look into her eyes.

A flash of annoyance must cross her face, for suddenly Serana is grinning smugly down at her. “You’re short,” she says, as blunt as ever, her red eyes shining with amusement.

Eres does scowl at her, then, and pushes roughly at Serana’s chest until she stumbles away from her. She knows she’s not strong enough to have actually pushed her away if Serana hadn’t allowed for it, but it makes her feel better anyways. She’s _tall_ for an elf, damn it. Nords like Serana are just—trees, disguised as people.

“Ass.” Eres turns on her heel, heading for the stairs, followed by the sound of Serana’s laughter at her back. Only when she’s down into the dark corridors of the stairwell does she allow herself to smile.

She’s glad that Serana can still laugh at a time like this. Even if it _is_ at her expense.


	19. Calling In Favors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 1/1: lol accidentally uploaded the draft version.

ACT III  
CHAPTER XIX  
“CALLING IN FAVORS”

“I see.”

Mirabelle Ervine, Master Wizard of the College of Winterhold, in Eres’ limited experience, is not usually a woman of few words. But sitting before them now in her private quarters, where they could speak privately, Mirabelle is quiet and contemplative, looking between them with a careful, measuring gaze. Eres has always considered herself rather good at reading people. She cannot read Mirabelle Ervine.

“We wouldn’t be asking if we had any other option,” Serana tells her, sounding genuinely apologetic. “My father is immensely powerful—one of the oldest vampires in all of Skyrim, if not _the_ oldest, period. The Dawnguard are already on their way to the Castle, but they don’t have mages among their numbers. Not like the College does.”

Mirabelle’s eyes slide to Eres. “And you? Have you no magical ability?”

Eres’ mouth twists. “My ability is limited,” she explains. “I’ve never been very skilled with battle magic. Runes, constructs, enchantments—those I can do, but all of that requires preparation. I wouldn’t be able to count on that in the middle of a battle with vampires, and certainly not against the likes of Harkon.”

Mirabelle, though, narrows her eyes at her. “You mean to say that you are accomplished with the runic arts, and yet cannot call a simple offensive spell to hand?”

Serana glares at her, but Eres sighs. “It’s not that I _can’t_ —it’s just very difficult for me. I get migraines if I try to use any targeted magic like that; even Restoration magic is hard for me to use without side effects.”

“Hmm,” Mirabelle’s gaze turns calculating. She looks at Eres as if she were a puzzle she wanted to piece together. “How very strange,” she muses. “You would benefit from a few courses here at the College, I expect. We may be able to get to the bottom of these—side effects of yours. Your mother certainly never had such limitations.”

Eres gapes at her. “M-my mother?”

Mirabelle offers her only a quick smile. “Another time, perhaps,” she says simply, and she turns her eyes to Serana. “You say you will—donate these scrolls to the College, should we lend our aid in this battle of yours?”

“We have no use for them now,” Serana tells her, even as she glances at Eres meaningfully, curiosity and concern in her gaze. Eres cannot even begin to respond to that look—her mind is still reeling. Mirabelle Ervine knew her mother? “As long as you swear to keep them protected—you can have them.”

“We have places to house dangerous artifacts such as these,” Mirabelle tells them. “Accessible only to a few trusted individuals within the College.”

“Such as?” Eres pries.

“Myself, the Archmage Savos Aren, and Urak gro-Shub—the orc who maintains the Arcaneum. You will have met him before.”

Eres remembers him—the shrewd orc who had maintained the Arcaneum, back when they had visited prior on their search for the Scrolls. Eres hadn’t spoken with him directly, but he certainly seemed to be quite intent on protecting the tomes and grimoires to be found within the College, if nothing else.

“I would trust each of them with my life,” Mirabelle tells them. “You will have no need to worry for the Scrolls, once they are in our possession.”

Still, Serana frowns. “You’ll get them _after_ the battle—I’m not going to hand them over now just for you to decide you don’t want to help.”

Mirabelle quirks a brow at her. “Not very trusting, are you?”

Serana’s eyes harden. “I’ve learned my lesson on trusting people,” she says heatedly. “The last time I trusted someone, they threw me in a coffin for four thousand years—so you’ll excuse me if I’m a little paranoid.”

At that, both of Mirabelle’s eyebrows raise. “I see,” she says again. “Understandable.” She looks then to Eres. “What kind of mages, might I ask, are you looking for in this battle?”

“Harkon has the ability to move at superhuman speed,” Eres tells her, “just like Serana. He has a secondary form, as well, as a pure-blood vampire, and is able to disappear and reappear at will. He also has vampiric magic at his disposal,” she looks to Serana, and the woman nods her confirmation. “Ideally, we would want mages who would be able to cripple him—slow him down, keep him from teleporting, perhaps silence or reduce the effects of his spells. That way we might be able to gain the upper hand on him.”

Mirabelle nods slowly. “I may know a few mages who excel in such areas—the senior-most students will have some experience with casting such debilitating spells as those, though not necessarily in the midst of battle. Their aid is also conditional,” Mirabelle states, and she looks each of them in the eye in turn. “I will not force my students to aid you. They must come to the decision on their own.”

Eres frowns, but she nods. “And if none of them agree?”

“Then you shall at least have me, one way or another.”

Eres blinks at her. “ _You’re_ going to come?”

“Aren’t you the Archmage’s right-hand man? Or woman, in this case?” Serana asks, equally surprised.

“I am,” Mirabelle confirms. “However,” she looks at Eres, “let us say there is someone I owe a great favor. I would be remiss if I turned my back upon you when you have come to me for my help.”

“About that,” Eres starts, but Mirabelle shakes her head.

“Not now,” Mirabelle says again. “I don’t wish to distract you from your cause. Once we have defeated this Harkon, then you may ask me all the questions you wish. I will tell you what I can, but I must warn you—the answers may not be what you wish to hear.”

Eres presses her lips together, and looks away. However Mirabelle had known her mother, that statement did not bode well. She had best not get her hopes up for finding out anything concrete. When she sees the concerned look Serana gives her, she shakes her head.

“We can deal with it later, then.” Eres stands, rising from the chair at Mirabelle’s desk. “Your students—how soon can you ask them?”

“Now,” Mirabelle says simply. “They should be done with their lessons for the day. Remain here—I shall return shortly.” Mirabelle turns, and leaves them alone in her small, spartan quarters, closing the door behind her.

Serana looks at her in the silence that follows, lips pressed into a thin line. “Mirabelle knew your mother?”

“Apparently,” Eres makes a face, unsure how to feel about it. “She did say something strange the last time we met her.” She can only barely remember it now, but she knows the woman had acted like she’d known her. It had been odd at the time, but Eres had discounted it, having too many other things on her mind to have spent any time worrying over it. Now, she wonders—how well had Mirabelle known her mother? _When_ had they known each other?

It had to have been before Eres was born, wouldn’t it? Eres had grown up entirely in Cyrodiil, and unless Mirabelle had also been in the Empire at the time, she would never have met her mother in Skyrim.

Unless—unless it was possible that her mother had gone to Skyrim some time after she’d left Eres and her father behind. And, Mirabelle had mentioned that her mother had not had any issues with battle magic—was that where her own gift came from? Had Eres inherited it from her? It had always seemed a bit odd that she had such capability even for runic magic and the like, when her father had been so suspicious of it. He’d gotten her tutors for her magic lessons, of course, but he’d never liked to see her displaying her ability as a child. She’d learned quickly to be _normal_ around him, lest she spark his temper.

Could it have been that her magic had reminded him of her mother? Was that why he had hated it so much? Why hadn’t he just _told_ her these things? Just how much had her father kept from her about her mother?

Gods, she didn’t even know the woman’s _name_.

“Are you feeling alright?”

Eres looks at her, and almost laughs at the absurdity of the question. “You’re asking me?”

“Unless you see someone else in this room, yes.”

“Serana,” Eres says patiently, gentling her voice, “we’re about to kill your father. Me learning that there’s someone who knew my mother at some point—that’s hardly something I can complain about, given the situation.”

Serana frowns. “You do know that someone else having something to be upset about doesn’t mean that you don’t have the right to be upset too, don’t you?” Eres looks away from her, sighing. “My family is my family. Yours is yours. You’re allowed to be knocked off balance by this. You told me you didn’t know anything about your mother, and now—all of a sudden you meet someone who claims to have known her. That has to be hard to reconcile.”

“It is,” Eres admits. “But—we can worry about it later. I’ve waited,” Eres calculates quickly in her head, and the answer surprises even her, “almost twenty years to learn something about her. I can wait a few more days.”

Serana looks at her doubtfully, but she nods. “If you say so,” she says, and thankfully drops the subject entirely.

And not a second too soon.

The door opens, and Mirabelle enters the room once more. Behind her, only two mages follow to enter the room behind her. One, a younger brunette woman with a kind, if somewhat naïve countenance. The second, a much older man with medium-length white hair and an equally white beard, with a pleasant, friendly smile upon his lips that cause the crows’ feet near his eyes to bunch and wrinkle.

“Eres, Serana,” Mirabelle greets them, “these are the mages who have agreed to assist against Harkon. Brelyna,” Mirabelle gestures to the young woman, who smiles and waves, “she is an underclassman,” Mirabelle admits with some hesitance, “but—she is quite accomplished for her age, and her spellcraft is… _inventive_.”

At this, Brelyna grins. “This seems like the perfect opportunity to test some of my new spells. I couldn’t have asked for a better chance!”

Eres looks at her dubiously, uncertain. Brelyna seems a bit too—youthful to be trusted with such a thing, but if Mirabelle vouched for her…

“And this is Tolfdir,” Mirabelle gestures to the old man, who bows his head slightly in acknowledgement, “one of the Professors here at the College. He has exceptional skill in the school of Alteration and with defensive magic—he will be able to provide wards for you and your allies, and increase your defenses in particular,” she says to Eres. “His assistance should make you much harder to kill, should Harkon target you.”

“He will.” Serana says firmly. “I can promise you that.”

Mirabelle nods, unsurprised. “Then Tolfdir will focus his defense upon Eres.” At this, Tolfdir nods his understanding, widening his smile briefly when he looks at Eres, as if to assure her. “Brelyna will focus on keeping Harkon and his men off-balance.”

“And you?” Serana asks. “What will you be doing?”

“I will be at your side,” Mirabelle says plainly. “You and I have much in common—both of us excel in offense. Between you and I, I am sure we will make quite the ruckus on the battlefield.” She smiles thinly, and Serana even returns it.

Eres inhales a steadying breath—her heart has started to race in anticipation. And maybe a bit of anxiety. “So that’s it, then—we have our mages. Now all that’s left is to get to the forward camp.”

“Speaking of which,” Mirabelle interjects. “If you can appropriately describe the location, we should be able to use the teleportation circle within the College to reach it.”

Eres blinks, then frowns. “Don’t you need a receiving circle to conduct a spell like that?”

“Perhaps, with your typical, garden-variety. The College, however, has its own apparatus for such things. Just think of how long it would take us to travel if we had to always place such circles in advance.” Mirabelle tutted, then jerked a finger to the door. “If you are prepared—we can leave now. I assume we will want to get there as soon as possible?”

Serana stands, too, and nods. “The Dawnguard should already be there—or very close. They left a day ahead of us. Once we meet up with them—”

Eres frowns suddenly, recalling something. “That reminds me. The jetty—how are we going to get all these people across without boats?”

Serana actually laughs. “Out of everything else we have to deal with, that’ll be the easy part. Especially with so many mages. We should be able to create a bridge across the water for us to cross on, between the lot of us,” she glances at Mirabelle, who nods her agreement.

“If not, there are always spells to manage such things,” Mirabelle says simply. “Let us head to the Circle, now. If we are all prepared?” She looks to Brelyna and Tolfdir, who both nod. “Good. Let us go to meet your friends, then, young one.”

“Stendarr’s Mercy,” Isran breathes, when Eres walks up to him with Serana and Mirabelle in tow. “Only three of them agreed to help?”

“This is Mirabelle Ervine,” Eres says, instead of answering him, “she’s one of the Master Wizards at the College.” Isran’s brows raise, and he reaches out to shake the woman’s hand politely. “The old man is one of the Professors.”

“And the girl?” Isran presses.

“A student,” Mirabelle answers, with a thin smile when he frowns at her. “But an exceptional one. She has a number of spells that will rankle Harkon and his men.”

Isran still eyes the girl doubtfully from a distance. “Looks young,” he says lowly. “Don’t know how I feel about throwing a kid into battle with a bunch of vampires.”

“If you haven’t noticed,” Mirabelle says, not unkindly, “Eres is not much older, herself.” From the look Isran sends Eres’ way, Eres knows that Isran had certainly noticed her age, and wasn’t necessarily happy about that either, no matter how much he respected her personally.

“If you can consider Eres capable enough,” Serana adds, “then so is this Brelyna.”

Isran sighs. “We’ll take all the help we can get. My men are prepared. Do your mages need anything before the battle? Preparations, incantations—whatever else?”

Mirabelle chuckles, amused. “I take it you have little experience fighting alongside mages.”

Isran’s expression sours. “I have tried to avoid them.”

“Good,” Mirabelle smiles tersely back at him. “Then you already have practice staying out of our way.” Eres’ brows rise, surprised by Mirabelle’s candor. She certainly hadn’t been so snippy towards Eres. “Myself and the mages will be focusing on this Harkon,” she says, and looks to Serana and Eres, “I trust you will be able to point him out for me.”

Serana sends the woman a deadpan look. “I doubt you’ll have any trouble finding him. He’ll be the one begging for everyone’s attention.” She rolls her eyes. “He might even have a monologue or two ready for us when we get there. My father’s always loved the sound of his own voice.”

Eres snorts derisively. “Sounds familiar.” Her father might not have been a vampire set on starting the apocalypse, but by the Divines, did he love hearing himself talk. Eres had lost count of how many times she’d spent hours sitting through his endless lectures whenever she’d done something to rub him the wrong way. She supposed she should count herself lucky he hadn’t been hellbent on ending the world.

“It certainly does,” Mirabelle agrees, eyeing Eres meaningfully. Eres’ brows draw together, but Mirabelle quickly turns away from her. “Serana—shall we make our bridge?”

“Certainly.” Serana smiles grimly, and the two of them walk off together towards the edge of the shoreline that faces Castle Volkihar and the island out to the north. Brelyna and Tolfdir, when they pass, follow along behind them—whether to lend their aid or for simply nothing better to do with themselves, Eres did not know.

Among the rest of the camp, Eres had been a bit stunned to see how chaotic it all was—how _loud_. She had expected the men of the Dawnguard to be quiet and pensive, contemplating the upcoming battle, knowing that each and every one of them might die within the next few hours.

Instead, small groups have formed among their numbers, men and women alike practicing their swordsmanship last minute, others warming up their aim with the crossbows. Several of the Dawnguard, those with the trained hounds, have taken to riling up the normally friendly huskies until they’re near frothing at the mouth, snarling and pulling at their harnesses, rearing to fight. Gunmar makes final adjustments on the few trolls he’d managed to bring with him, making sure their armor fits properly, testing their reaction times to commands for the incoming battle. Every so often, Eres can hear the trolls’ roaring bellows above the din of the men surrounding them.

Sorine Jurard stands behind a hastily erected table, a scattering of quivers—both for crossbow and traditional bow—with pre-enchanted arrows loaded into each of them. Beside the table are several barrels filled to the brim with arrows shafts poking out of them, and several smaller kegs leak dark, viscous oil onto the white snow beneath them—when the battle starts and the enchanted arrows have run out, the archers will dip their arrows into those oil barrels to light the tips with fire, just for good measure.

Sorine had not managed to reproduce the sun-bright arrows Eres had found alongside Auriel’s Bow, but she had crafted something almost as good—the enchanted arrows she had managed would explode on impact, hopefully with enough force to dismember even the hardier bodies of the vampires they would face.

Eres even spots Agmaer and Celann in one of the groups practicing their forms, each of them taking turns with crossing swords, and then shields. Both of them look fit and ready for battle, even as Durak stands stoically nearby, barking corrections to their forms as they get in their last minute warm-ups.

Looking at them all, Eres cannot help but wonder how many of them will remain after the battle. How many of her friends might she have to bury, after this is over?

“Eres.”

Eres turns her head, looking back at Isran. The man watches her with knowing in his dark eyes.

“This,” he tells her quietly, “this is what war looks like.” He looks at her, soft around the edges, his eyes gentle with understanding. “Hopefully, it will be the last time you have to see it.”

Eres swallows, and nods. “Hopefully, for all of us,” she says. She does not think of the Civil War now, between the Rebels and the Empire. She hopes there will never come a time where she feels she has to choose a side in that.

“Are you ready to go?” Isran asks of her, pulling his too-bright Warhammer from his back. Despite its heft, he manages to lift it with one hand, balancing it on his broad shoulder. He jerks his chin in the direction of the shoreline. “Looks like Serana and the others have the bridge ready for us. It’s now or never.”

Eres nods, several times in quick succession. She’s not sure who she’s trying to convince—herself, or Isran. “I’m ready. Now or never.”

Eres turns to join Serana and the others at the foot of that bridge, and manages to smile thinly when Serana meets her gaze. The other woman merely nods in response, quiet. Behind her, Eres hears Isran’s bellowing rallying call:

“Men, to me!”

There is an answering cry, a din of voices raised in the rallying shouts of an army—small as it was—and then Eres hears the sound of orderly marching behind her. The Dawnguard have taken up the rear.

Isran finds his place beside her, hefts his Warhammer into both hands with purpose. Eres pulls Auriel’s Bow from her back, and nocks one of the sun-bright arrows, ready to draw and fire at a moment’s notice.

Beside her, Eres sees Serana, Mirabelle, and even Belyna brandish the misting forebears of destructive spells into their hands. Tolfdir comes to stand at Eres’ left hand side, raising hands that glow bluish-white with protective energy. Eres feels something like a second, harder skin settle over her own. And just in front of them, Eres sees the telltale ripple of a warding spell spread in front of them like a curtain.

 _Now or never,_ Eres thinks, one last time, and she takes that first, fateful step onto the bridge—and into the battle of Castle Volkihar.


	20. Volkihar Assault

ACT III  
CHAPTER XX   
VOLKIHAR ASSAULT

Harkon is ready for them when they come.

The moment that Eres foot touches the stone of the bridge leading to the portcullis of Castle Volkihar, the solid stone statues of gargoyles flanking the path burst into action with deafening, twin roars. Eres hears a yell from ahead of them, from the man guarding the door, just as the second pair of gargoyles leap from their pedestals to bear down upon them.

The Dawnguard warriors meet them before Eres can even line up her shot. One goes down in short order, head broken from its shoulders by a wild haymaker of an advancing armored troll at Gunmar’s command. The other, flanked by several Dawnguard with their shields raised and swords poised to strike at any openings, is kept busy with attempting to hold them off.

Eres shifts her aim down the pathway, and fires the first of the few sun-bright arrows she has at the doorman who rushes down the bridge toward them, a spell raised at the ready in each hand, aiming for his neck.

The arrow hits him solidly in the chest, instead, and _bursts_ into light upon impact, more powerfully than even she had expected. In the wake of the explosion of enchanted sunlight, the doorman’s corpse remains, naught but a lifeless shell, charred black from head to waist. A passing Dawnguard soldier heaves down with his axe as he steps over him, cutting off the vampire’s head at the neck—just to make sure it will not rise to join the fray again.

Eres hears the quick _schwink, schwink_ of Serana’s ice spikes as they sail down the bridge towards the advancing vampire fodder—they must be, for they run at them with abandon and without any sort of order.

At their heels, the black-bodied necromantic hounds tear out onto the bridge from behind them, howling their intent. From beside her, Eres hears the crack of thunder of Mirabelle’s bolts of lightning flashing toward the approaching vampires, arcing between them.

They do not seize as the Falmer had, but stumble, and push through. Mirabelle swears, and fires again—the clap of thunder is near enough to deafen Eres, so loud and piercing that her ears ring, smarting with a sharp, sudden pain. Two of the vampires catch the bolts squarely in the chest—and are blown right off their feet back into those behind them. One of them careens right into the path of a charging Deathhound, tripping the undead dog end over end.

The Dawnguard’s wolfdogs are on that Deathhound before it can even rise to its forepaws, three of them to the one, tearing and ripping with a savagery Eres has not known them capable of. In mere seconds the Deathhound is ripped apart, and the wolfdogs howl and snarl as they find their next targets.

Gunmar’s armored trolls stalk up the bridge ahead of the advancing line of Dawnguard soldiers, knocking vampires from their feet and tossing them off the sides of the bridge itself.

One of the vampires throws a savage spell towards the troll, cursing them—and the troll stumbles, falls, and collapses at once. The vampire laughs in their face, taunting them—and then a second troll’s giant paw closes around his tiny head, picks him up, and flings him off the side with a grunt.

Onward, the Dawnguard advance. Eres, careful with her arrows now, chooses her regular silver arrows, and watches her aim—in the fray, it would be all too easy to hit an ally. She chooses her shots wisely—with the Dawnguard and trolls ahead of them, she has time to make sure her arrows land where she wants them to, and nowhere else.

The remaining two trolls face off against the last two gargoyles, and the door is open. Eres sees the foyer behind it—and the chaos within.

With three sharp, piercing whistles, the wolfdogs release their quarries at once and dart back behind the advancing line as the Dawnguard push and fight their way into the small, cramped foyer.

The line squeezes together, bottlenecked by the narrower entrance hall, and the vampires meet them in the center. A fierce battle breaks out all around Eres as the soldiers surround her and the mages, boxing them in protectively. At her side, Isran’s wide swings of his Warhammer alone keep several vampires at bay, crippling any who dare to come within his range.

Then Eres hears a pained, very human scream, and her head snaps to look just behind her—and she sees one of the Dawnguard pressed against the wall, bleeding profusely from his neck. One of the vampire has him pinned, ripping savagely at his throat with his teeth until blood arcs and speed across the wall and floor around them.

She hardly manages to process the sight before the flash of a long, wide blade thrusts into the back of the vampire’s neck—and through the Dawnguard’s, too, until it hits the stone wall behind them both. She follows that sword to its owner, and finds Durak the orc behind it, his face blank, eyes deceptively calm.

The orc wrests the sword free of both of them, cutting both heads from their shoulders in one fell swoop, and then he is moving again—as if he had not just killed one of his own. “Better off dead,” Eres hears the orc mutter as he goes.

But Eres’ eyes are on the rolling head of the young Dawnguard soldier he’d killed.

She recognizes him. He was one of Agmaer’s friends—one of the gate guards who often took duty with him. He couldn’t have been much older than Eres herself, hardly more than a child. He’d always had a smile to greet her, with crisp blue eyes like the winter sky. Blue eyes that stared up at her now, empty. Unseeing. She’d never even learned his name.

“Eres! _Eres!”_ A hand closes around her arm and shakes, _hard_ , until Eres blinks, turns away from the sight of him—and sees the too-red eyes of Serana in front of her, looking down at her with fervor. “We have to find my father!” Serana’s eyes dart quickly over Eres’ shoulder—at the head. She doesn’t comment on it. Instead, she tugs Eres along beside her, pulling her away from the death and chaos behind them.

Eres swallows, and blinks back tears she doesn’t deserve to cry. She hadn’t even known him. But she’d led him to his death. How many more of them would die, fighting for her and Serana’s sake?

Deeper inside the castle they go, finally past the chokepoint of the foyer and down into Harkon’s court. The fight has spread to the ends of the rooms, battles in pockets rather than one large flurry, allowing Serana and Eres room to maneuver and rush through the chaos to chase after Harkon.

Mirabelle, Tolfdir, and Brelyna follow at their heels. Tolfdir’s spell remains on Eres, painting her skin with a cool, almost wet feeling as it functions as a personal shield, a second skin to block any incoming attacks she doesn’t see coming. Brelyna and Mirabelle fling spells this way and that from behind them as they pass skirmishes, taking the chance to get in potshots on the unsuspecting vampires around them. Eres sees several of their targets drop at once from direct, powerful hits.

And then there is Harkon, lording over them all. He is already in his secondary form, floating inches above the floor, throwing spells into the fray just as their own mages do—only his hit much harder, bowling entire groups over without discrimination, both vampire and Dawnguard, his eyes wild with fury.

Those eyes only burn hotter once they land upon Serana.

“ _You!”_ he bellows, lifting several feet from the floor in his rage, “I knew I should have killed you when I had the chance, _daughter_. I will not make the same mistake again! Just like your _traitorous bitch_ of a mother—”

Brelyna throws a spell at him with a shout.

Harkon drops a foot, rearing back. He frowns. Looks at her. Then flings his own arm out with a scoff.

Brelyna flies into the wall behind them, and goes still.

Mirabelle swears under her breath, sparks flying from her fingers. “Now, Eres!”

Eres draws her bow, sun-bright arrow in hand, and fires.

The explosion stuns him, it does, but it does not char and burn him as it had the other vampire before him. Eres draws and fires in fluid motion, strafing to keep from being a stationary target, Tolfdir at her side, keeping up his ward around them both. Mirabelle ducks behind a pillar, peeking out only to throw bolts of lightning at Harkon’s twisted face.

Serana, too, joins the fray with her own magic, raising the corpses of both Dawnguard and vampire nearby to swarm upon him, keep him occupied, and flinging her own offensive spells in between. Harkon bats them aside with his claws, cursing Serana’s name with each swipe.

Eres tries to keep up with her arrows, but she only has so many of the blessed ones—before long, they are out, and she is left with nothing but silver.

At her back, Dawnbreaker hums mutinously, feeling somehow _furious_ that it is missing out on the action. Eres studiously ignores it, her mind too focused on keeping Harkon pinned down where she can.

But then his body starts to shift, disintegrate, turning into mist, and her arrows merely fly right through him. She curses, expecting him to come for her—

But then suddenly his mist-form halts, pausing in mid-air, and starts to coalesce suddenly once more. From behind, Eres hears a little cheer. When she looks, Brelyna is knelt upon the ground, only half on her feet, blood pouring from a wound on her head but _grinning_ madly.

“I’ve got him!” She exclaims, all too proudly. “But you’d better hurry—”

Eres looks back to Harkon—as his body reforms, as his skin begins to crack and peel like old, chipped paint. It turns from blue to grey and then a deep, charred black as his body glows with a whitish-light, and she realizes what Brelyna has done. The girl’s trapped him, somehow—and then infused him with restorative magic. The magic _burns_ even him.

Eres runs for him, whipping Dawnbreaker from her back—she has none of Auriel’s arrows left, and it is their best bet, she _knows_ —and she runs him through, piercing the blade up through his belly and out of his upper back—a part of her wants to carve him in two.

But he snarls at her, even through the searing bright light of Dawnbreaker’s angrily pulsing gem, and out of the corner of her eye she sees his hand raise, talons extended, coming straight at her.

Molag Bal’s dark promise sounds between her ears. Eres flinches, jerking out of his reach, Dawnbreaker falling from her hands and instead remaining suspended in his chest where she’d driven it as she leaps backward, well out of his range.

Harkon’s snarl turns into a cruel smile as he reaches down and closes a hand around the blade, even as that hand blackens and begins to shrivel on contact—but he pulls, uncaring, even as black blood flows from his mouth. He will not be felled so quickly—and now he has her greatest weapon against him.

He starts to pull it, making to yank it from his body—

But then Serana is there, her right hand closing around the hilt of Meridia’s blessed blade, and with a snarl of her own, she drives that sword through him to the hilt, and _lifts_ —and Dawnbreaker cuts through him, splitting through his belly and chest and erupting out of the side of his neck. His torso already half detached, Harkon sways inplace, his expression frozen with shock.

For good measure, Serana arcs the blade back, across his neck, and separates Harkon’s head from his body.

Harkon’s corpse falls—and Dawnbreaker clatters to the ground not a second later. Serana drops to her knees beside him, panting—and paler than Eres has ever seen her, clutching her right hand close to her chest.

Eres runs to her, gathers the woman in her arms. Mirabelle is mere seconds behind, calling white-hot flames into either hand as she set fire to Harkon’s corpse. Only once it has begun to burn and smolder on its own does Mirabelle lower her hands, and turn to Serana with a thoroughly unimpressed look upon her face.

“That was a very stupid thing to do, vampire.” Mirabelle says plainly.

Eres glares up at her, but Serana hisses in her arms, and she looks down—down to the hand Serana holds close to her chest.

Serana’s fingers and palm are seared an angry, vicious red, and even beyond it—glowing white lines erupt outward from the burn, spider-webbing near halfway up her forearm, in the all-too-familiar pattern of the veins beneath her skin as if they had been infused with divine light and _burned_ from within.

From the pained glaze over Serana’s eyes, Eres is certain her thoughts are not far from the truth.

“Brelyna—go out there and see if you can’t find any blood potions. I’m sure they must have some around here somewhere.” Mirabelle orders, and Brelyna darts off at a run, seemingly unconcerned with her own injuries.

In Eres’ arms, Serana trembles, ashen, eyes bright with pain and exhaustion—and her right hand is curled almost into the perfect representation of a grip upon a sword’s hilt, frozen in place, stiff and unmoving. Eres brushes her hand against it, and Serana rips her hand away, hissing.

“Don’t touch it!”

“I—I’m sorry.” Eres feels like the guilt just might swallow her whole.

She could have finished him. She _should_ have finished him herself. But when she’d seen his claw—she hadn’t known what his strike might do to her. She’d feared the touch of his claw would infect her, corrupt her for Molag Bal’s taking—and she’d let her fear control her.

And now Serana is paying the price for her cowardice.

She had to have known what would happen if she grabbed Meridia’s blade with her own hands. Meridia had tolerated Serana, perhaps, but Serana must have _known_ she wouldn’t have taken kindly to a vampire wielding her holy blade. Serana had known the risks, and she’d done it anyways—just to finish him. Just to make sure they killed him.

Because Eres had not. Could not.

“I’m sorry, Serana—”

Serana shakes her head mutely. Mirabelle’s hand squeezes gently at Serana’s shoulder as Brelyna returns with an armful of differently sized vials and bottles of thick, red liquid. The young mage even helps to uncap one before she hands it to Serana, who downs it in one shot.

Serana goes through several more of them before she stops shaking. Two more in the minutes following before she manages to stand on her own.

Eres watches Serana flex her fingers, testingly. The joints move, stiffly, but only just. The angry red fades to a light, more of a slightly irritated pink—but the glowing white tracks of her veins remain as strong as they had been before. As pale as Serana is, they might have even blended with her skin, had Eres not seen them up close. Now that Eres knows to look for them, she can see nothing else. She can only hope it will not be a permanent reminder of her failure.

“Shall I assume this,” Isran says as he approaches, gesturing towards the still smoldering corpse upon the stairs, “was your father? Is it done, then?”

“Why else would we be standing here?” Mirabelle retorts.

Isran ignores the snappish woman, turning his eyes instead upon Serana, who still cradles her hand. His eyes narrow. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Your vampire friend here decided to touch a holy blade,” Mirabelle says dryly.

Quietly, Eres picks Dawnbreaker from the floor, sliding it into the sheath on her back. The weapon feels unusually heavy, as if her own guilt has suffused it until its weight upon her back feels like it might drag her to the depths of the earth itself. There is a tightness in her throat, anxiety buzzing beneath her skin, the constant din of her thoughts ricocheting within her skull.

Her fault. Her fault Serana is hurt. Her fault Serana might be scarred forever, smote by the one deity who hates her kind the most of them all. If it wasn’t for her—

A hand lands heavily upon her shoulder. She draws away from it at first, expecting it to be Serana—she doesn’t deserve her comfort, after the pain she’d caused her—but the hand belongs to Mirabelle instead, looking at her with meaning.

“Come, Eres,” Mirabelle says, “You and I must speak before we part ways.” Mirabelle tugs at her arm, the look in her eyes barring any thoughts that Eres might have refused, and she glances shortly to Isran and Serana, and nods them a brief farewell.

Then she is tugging Eres away, away from Harkon’s corpse, away from Serana, away from Isran, away even from Tolfdir and Brelyna and out of the room entirely, down a narrow hall that Eres doesn’t recognize.

In the distance, Eres can hear the muffled voices of the Dawnguard in the rooms and halls adjacent, making their way through the rest of the castle to search for survivors and tend to the injured. Their voices sound light, unbothered, filled with a relief and thrill that is almost tangible in the cold air of the castle.

But Eres does not feel any sense of relief, no sense of happiness or thrill or—anything. She keeps seeing Harkon’s death in her mind, Serana’s grip on Dawnbreaker’s hilt, the way her hand had curled and reddened and the angry white glow of her veins against her pale skin—

“Eres.” Mirabelle calls her to attention. Eres looks at her, frowns. She doesn’t understand why Mirabelle looks at her in such a way—as if she knows. As if she understands. “You froze.”

Eres flinches, despite the lack of accusation in her tone. Mirabelle is simply stating a fact, laying it out in the open, and still Eres feels as though she’s been slapped.

“Why?” Mirabelle asks next, her eyes thoughtful and all-too-perceptive. “I would have thought no one wanted him dead as much as you—from what I have observed. And yet, when the time came to deal the final blow… You could not.” Eres swallows. Mirabelle’s eyes narrow. “I do not believe it is for lack of hate. Am I correct in this assumption?”

Eres doesn’t want to answer that. “I—don’t know what happened.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a terrible liar?” Eres glares at her, but Mirabelle only smiles thinly. “For a woman who has grown up without her mother, you show a striking resemblance to her in more ways than one.”

If Mirabelle could take it easy on the emotional gut-punches, Eres would appreciate it. “You promised you’d answer me—”

“And I will,” Mirabelle interjects. “Once you tell me the truth of why you could not kill him.”

Eres’ jaw clenches. “It just happened in the moment.”

Mirabelle frowns. “That is not an answer.”

“Maybe I’m just a coward, then.”

“You and I both know that is not true,” Mirabelle says firmly, looking at her with intent. “You would not have been able to retrieve Auriel’s Bow if you were. What is the _real_ reason? Does it have something to do with Serana?”

“It has nothing to do with her.”

“So there _is_ something else, then.”

Eres scowls at her. “It’s none of your business. He’s dead. That’s what matters.”

“And Serana?” Mirabelle presses. “This—mysterious thing that bothers you, that stopped you from doing what needed to be done. You know it is the reason Serana was forced to deal the final blow herself.” Mirabelle, for such a small, unassuming woman, does not pull her punches in the slightest. “Whatever it is—you must deal with it—or you may only endanger those around you. Not everyone is as hardy as Serana. The next time, it may just end in someone’s death.”

“Don’t,” Eres warns, her voice dangerously low. “I know _very_ well just how many people depend on me. More than even you know.” It wasn’t just Serana, or the Dawnguard, or even the Vigilants.

She’s fucking Dragonborn, and she’s sure it won’t be long until she’s called to fill _that_ role, too. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate as it is.

“I’ll handle it.” Eres spins on her heel, marching briskly back down the corridor—back to Serana. She ignores Mirabelle’s voice at her back.

“Wasn’t there something you wished to ask?” Mirabelle calls after her, and Eres keeps walking.

She can hardly even look at Mirabelle for being reminded of what had happened. As if she needed another reminder. As if she needed any more prompting to feel like she wanted to disappear, sink through the floor and vanish into the ether just so she didn’t have to face it.

As if anyone could be harder on Eres than she could be on herself.

“You’re back,” Isran notes, when she stalks into the room. He takes one look at her face and his face darkens. “What did that mage woman want with you?”

“Nothing important,” Eres mutters. She looks at Serana, at the way Serana still clenches and unclenches her fist. Her fingers seem to move easier, now, but a frown continues to tug at Serana’s lips. Then Serana looks at her, and that frown vanishes so quickly that Eres wonders if she had imagined it.

“Eres,” Serana says, and sends her a wan smile. Her eyes flit behind Eres, brows pulling together. “Where did Mirabelle go?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Serana raises a brow at that, clearly curious.

“What did she do to piss you off?”

Eres shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Are you feeling alright?”

Serana sighs. She clenches her fist once more, releases it, then clenches it again. Then she shakes out her fingers. “Still a little tingly, to be honest. Not my favorite experience in the world.”

“I can imagine,” Eres says slowly, looking at that hand. The white lines still haven’t faded, even if it is moving better than it had been. “I’m sorr—”

“If you apologize to me one more time, I’m going to punch you.” Eres blinks. “It’s not your fault. He could have killed you—you were right to back down.” Eres reels back, mouth opening to protest, but Serana glares fiercely back at her. “You’re _mortal_ , Eres. It’s about time you remembered it.”

Eres hears Isran chuckle, and snaps her head to look at him, feeling almost a little betrayed. He smirks back at her.

“The _vampire_ ,” Isran says pointedly, referring to Serana by her nature for what feels like the first time in months—but not unkindly. “Has a point. You ought to remember you’re not invincible. You can’t do everything alone. Without Serana and the Dawnguard, none of this would have been possible. Accept the help when it’s offered to you.”

Eres makes a face at that. She doesn’t know quite how she feels about Isran and Serana being on the same page. It feels suspiciously like they’re ganging up on her. “Speaking from experience?”

“As a matter of fact,” Isran admits, “yes, I am. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” He gives a measuring look. “You, on the other hand, have no such excuse. If I can still learn something at my age…”

“You’re not _that_ old.” What could he be? Forty? Fifty? Old enough to be her father, possibly. Certainly old enough to _sound_ like one, sometimes. “Stop lecturing me.”

“Stop being stupid.” Serana retorts.

“What she said.” Isran agrees.

Eres looks between the both of them, and frowns. “I think I liked it better when you were threatening to kill each other.”

The two of them laugh at her—in unison. It’s possibly more unsettling than it should be.

But Isran’s cheer is short lived, for when he quickly returns to business. “The Dawnguard can help clear the castle of—the casualties,” he says to Serana, diplomatically. “Before we leave.”

“I appreciate that.”

Isran crosses his arms, nodding to himself. “And?” He prompts. “Are you going to stay here, now that all this is over?”

Isran shifts closer to Serana, and for a moment, Eres isn’t quite sure why. Then she sees the approach of several Dawnguard as they come for what remains of Harkon’s body, lift it, and start to carry him away. Isran blocks Serana’s line of sight, keeping her from seeing it. All the time, now, Isran surprises her.

Serana places a hand on her hip, sighing. “I honestly don’t know. For a while, maybe. I still have to get my mother out of the Soul Cairn.”

Isran looks at Eres, as if expecting her to volunteer.

“I’m not going this time,” Eres says, and she shares a quick glance with Serana—they’d talked about this, before, however briefly. “One hike through the Soul Cairn was enough for me, thanks. Even if I wanted to go back, I have some things to handle for the Vigilants that I’ve been putting off for some time.”

Isran nods. “Right—that investigation you were doing. Where was it again? Windhelm?”

“That’s the one,” Eres confirms.

“And after that?” Isran asks her, glancing shortly in Serana’s direction. “Are you going to remain with the Vigilants?” Then he frowns. “Then again, you are their Keeper…”

“For now, I don’t have a choice.” Eres doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable with returning to them, either. Not that she’d ever been especially drawn to the role of a Vigilant, but she feels even less so now—after everything with Serana. It didn’t feel right to go back to leading a group of religious zealots of whom most would probably froth at the mouth for the mere chance of destroying her.

“After I finish up the investigation in Windhelm, hopefully I can start making arrangements to name a replacement.” Serana looks at her, surprised. Eres hadn’t mentioned that the last time they’d spoken about it. “Once I can find someone to take up the mantle, then I’ll hang it up for good.”

Isran nods. “You’re a better person than I am,” Isran tells her. “I just left.”

“Yes, well…” Eres trails off, scratching at the back of her neck. She had certainly wanted to ‘just leave’ sometimes. Even before she’d met Serana. “It wouldn’t feel right to leave them floundering. The Vigilants have been crippled by—the attacks.”

Isran catches her stumble, and his brows knit together. His eyes dart to Serana quickly, then to her. Eres looks back at him, begging him not to mention what she’d told him, hoping he could read it in her eyes.

He doesn’t. But he does regard her searchingly, likely wondering why Serana didn’t know. Why Eres hadn’t told her. But Eres had her reasons, and for the moment, at least, Isran seemed to trust them.

“Well, then,” Isran looks around the room, and nods to himself, looking satisfied. “It appears we’re almost done here. Are you going to ride alongside us, Eres? I can loan you one of our horses for your return to Windhelm.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Eres agrees.

Isran nods. He turns then to Serana. “If you ever find yourself in need of a place to stay—Fort Dawnguard’s gates will always be open for you.”

“Thank you.” Serana smiles at him, and Isran pats Eres on the shoulder as he leaves.

Serana and Eres follow shortly after, walking through the castle at an unusually slow place—as if to savor the short time they have remaining together.

The halls, now, are mostly clear of corpses, though the blood and signs of battle remain. Once they make it past the foyer and outside onto the bridge, Eres sees several groups of soldiers carrying the dead bodies of vampires and fallen Dawnguard alike—and a pyre that has been raised on the shore just beside the bridge itself. Mirabelle, Brelyna, and Tolfdir stand near that pyre, feeding its flames with their magic until it burns near twenty feet high, so hot that that Eres can swear she can feel the heat of it even from several meters away.

“So, this is it, then,” Serana says, when they come to stand upon the hard-packed sand of the shoreline at the foot of the bridge. Ahead of them, several Dawnguard have already begun to cross back over to the forward camp. Gunmar is already across, tending to the singular troll that had survived the battle. The Dawnguard’s wolfdogs, even covered in blood and grit, bark and yip as they chase each other up and down the edge of the shoreline, paws splashing carelessly into icy water. It’s a strange sight—especially after witnessing just how violent they could be when provoked.

“This is it,” Eres agrees. Her heart feels unnaturally heavy—and not just with guilt, but dismay. She’s _sad_ to be leaving Serana here.

It doesn’t feel right for them to part ways. It doesn’t feel right to be leaving Serana behind and returning to the Vigilants, of all people. It just—it won’t feel right without her, anymore. Serana’s part of her, now.

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” Serana asks. “With the Vigilants?”

She asks the question almost casually, but her expression is somber, eyes soft. Eres knows her face is likely a reflection of Serana’s, unhappy and a bit regretful—remorseful that they must part.

“I don’t know,” Eres admits quietly. “I hope it won’t be long.”

Serana sighs. She looks across the shore, though at what, Eres doesn’t know. Perhaps just to break the heavy stare between them, to feel like she can breathe again. Eres doesn’t know what’s harder—looking into Serana’s eyes, or looking at Serana looking _away_ from her. She doesn’t know what she wants, anymore.

“It probably won’t take too long to find my mother, now that I’ve been there,” Serana says at last. “But I don’t think I can stay here, after everything that’s happened. Mother might need some convincing, but,” she sighs, shrugging. “Hopefully Fort Dawnguard has room for one more vampire.”

“They might,” Eres tells her. “Isran seems a little less—homicidal, now.” Serana snorts, at that, and Eres grins at her. “Though your mother is even more snippy than you are. They’ll be at each other’s throats, I’m sure of it.”

“As long as they don’t _actually_ kill each other, I don’t mind. If it keeps them both occupied and out of my hair, anyways,” Serana waves a hand dismissively, seeming unconcerned. “My mother might be prickly, but she’s not an idiot. She won’t cross the line with him.”

“She’ll just toe it,” Eres says. “If she’s anything like you.”

Serana’s lips curl into a wicked smile. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Eres rolls her eyes, good-naturedly. “Of course not.”

“Listen, Eres—” Serana crosses her arms, winces, and flexes the fingers of her right hand. “Did you mean it?”

“Mean…what, exactly?”

“About leaving the Order.”

“Oh,” Eres blinks. “Yes,” she says simply. “I never planned to be Keeper forever, anyway. It was—just something I sort of got saddled with unexpectedly. But I had Fellburg to take care of, and the pay was nice enough, so…” She shrugs. “Fellburg is doing well enough on its own now, though, so there’s no need for me to remain there. I just have to find someone to take my place, and I’ll be done with them.”

“And then?” Serana asks. “What do you plan on doing after that? Got any more adventures planned?”

“Hmm,” Eres considers it, eyeing her. She has the feeling she knows exactly what Serana’s getting at. “Maybe,” she says slowly. “How does _Dragonborn_ sound? Any better than _The Great Moth Priest Hunt_?”

Serana’s eyes shine when she smiles, then. “ _Maybe_ ,” she says, coy. But her smile softens, her eyes warming. “What do you say? After you’re done with the Vigilants—want a tagalong? I think you and I have a few more stories we could make together.”

For some reason, the promise of that—the simple idea of her and Serana, again as partners, _making stories together_ —something about that makes Eres’ heart pound, an inexplicable warmth blossoming inside her chest.

The feeling it evokes—that feeling of gratitude, of care, of something like longing—is so strong that Eres’ throat feels tight all over again, for an entirely different reason. The feeling is just so _much_ that Eres doesn’t even know how she manages to breathe through it.

But Eres allows herself to smile, lets that warmth billow out of her just a little bit, just to show her, just to prove to her— _Yes,_ her heart says, shouts it even. _Yes, a thousand times over._ There’s nothing she wants more.

“Maybe we can manage to make one you’d want to read.”

“Maybe,” Serana agrees.

Unexpectedly, Serana steps close to her, and pulls her into her arms.

It’s the third time she and Serana have hugged. Eres knows because she’s counted. Eres has counted because she can’t remember the last person she hugged even _once_ , let alone three times, and yet with Serana—it just feels like it’s meant to be. Like Eres could stay there forever if she wanted to, and never get tired of it.

Serana leans down to touch her chin upon Eres’ shoulder. It keeps Eres from having to stand on her toes, at least, but the reminder of just how much taller than her Serana is will probably never stop being a little annoying.

In this one instance, though, Eres doesn’t feel annoyed at all. How can she, with all that warmth inside her? How can she, when she hears Serana’s voice, low in her ear, saying those words?

_“Hurry back to me._ ” Serana murmurs to her, squeezing her just a little tighter. “I’ll miss you.”

The warmth in her feels like it just might burst if she doesn’t leave now.

“I’ll miss you, too.” Eres doesn’t leave without telling her that. Even after she says it, it’s still hard to turn away from her.

But Eres must, and so she does.

She finds her horse. Mounts it. Settles her riding cloak about herself and pulls the fur-lined hood over her hair to keep the cold out. She checks her things—her weapons, her quiver, her saddlebags and pack. She has a long ride to Windhelm ahead of her.

Isran stops briefly beside her on the way to the front of the caravan, pats a heavy hand upon her back. Mounted, Isran looks every bit the Commander he is meant to be. The pat on her back and the smile he sends her may as well have been a hug, for a man like Isran. She returns his smile, watches him ride ahead to lead the Dawnguard home.

Eres hesitates just a moment longer. She turns her mount so that she can look upon the castle one last time before she leaves, commit it to her memory.

In the distance, it rises into the fog misting upon the water’s surface. Eres sees only the tiniest dot of a figure dressed in black, moving back up the bridge into the castle. Beside the bridge, the smoldering embers of the pyre continue to burn, the dark smoke billowing into the air to mingle with the fog that near-cloaks the castle from view.

_Soon_ , she tells herself. Soon, she’ll finish her business in Windhelm, find someone else to take up the mantle she never wanted in the first place. Soon, she’ll find her again.

One day, not even the gods themselves would be able to keep them apart.


End file.
